Home phone Guides

Cheap calls to Thailand

Updated: Friday 20 January, 2012

By Anthony Hill - anthony.hill@consumerchoices.co.uk

Calling your friends and family in Thailand can be expensive, especially if you’re not using an international phone card or don’t have a calling plan add-on. But you can still make cheap calls to Thailand by finding the right deal…

Provider	Package name		Thailand daytime call rate (per minute)		Monthly package cost		Line rental cost
	Vonage V-Plan 5		FREE		£19.99		£10.75	Go
	Talk UK Anytime		78.7p		£6.21		£14.50	Go
	Anytime Plan		55.6p		£2.99		£11.22	Go
	Primus Home Phone Max		22p		£2.79		£10	Go

Phoning relatives and friends in Thailand can be very expensive if you don’t have the right call plan. Customers signed up to BT’s Weekend Calls tariff, for example, will be charged 78.5p per minute for calls made during weekdays (7am - 7pm) and 76p per minute at all other times. So, a 10-minute call during the day will set you back a whopping £7.98, including the 13.1p one-off call connection fee.

You can save on your calls though, by switching to a home phone provider that offers cheaper call rates. To find the right package for you, just answer these simple questions:

• Do I regularly call any other countries, apart from Thailand?
• Do I call landlines in Thailand and/or mobiles?
• How long do I usually talk for?
• How much are calls to Thailand costing me at the moment?

Work out how much you’re spending on international phone calls by reviewing your last few bills, then compare home phone deals online to see if you could save money on calls to Thailand by switching to a cheaper landline provider.

Make calls to Thailand with your landline provider

It is unlikely that you’ll find a home phone provider that offers completely free calls to landlines in Thailand, but you can reduce your bills by signing up to a supplier that offers discounted rates.

For example, Primus’ Home Phone Max package offers free calls to UK local and national landlines and charges customers just 22p per minute to call landlines in Thailand during the day - a saving of over 50p a minute compared to BT’s international rates.

The Home Phone Max package costs £2.79 a month, and line rental is £10 a month, if you sign-up online through Homephonechoices.co.uk.

YourCalls.net also offers discounted calls to Thailand if you choose the country as your “Golden Destination”. The Golden Destination deal from YourCalls.net lets all customers choose one country that they call most frequently to receive a discount on call charges.

So although calls to Thailand usually cost 55.6p per minute during the day; selecting Thailand as your Golden Destination will cut costs to just 4.3p per minute during the day, and 4p in the evenings and at weekends.

Call Thailand for free using the internet

If you’ve got a broadband connection at home, you could also make cheap or even free calls to Thailand over the internet. Using an internet phone provider (VoIP), such as Vonage (www.vonage.co.uk), could really help cut your monthly landline bills.

Internet phone services, or VoIP as they’re also known, work like a traditional phone service - you can even use your existing phone to make calls to other landlines or mobiles. VoIP is different to traditional home phone services because of the technology it uses - your phone handset must be plugged into a special VoIP adapter, which is in turn plugged into your broadband router or modem. This routes your call over the internet.

If you sign-up to the Vonage V-Plan 5, calls to landlines in Thailand will be free, all day every day. All Vonage-to-Vonage calls are also free, though a minimum set-up fee, monthly subscription and line rental charges do apply.

Skype offers a similar service, which may also be worth trying. You can even make video calls to friends and family in Thailand for free if you’re both using Skype, taking advantage of cheap call rates to Thai landlines even if they're not online.

Choosing a phone provider to make cheaper calls

Whether its Thailand, Australia, Pakistan or the USA that you call most frequently, there are a variety of landline plans to choose from that will suit your needs and help reduce your bills. You should also consider VoIP calls, as these can be free for some destinations.

Use the Homephonechoices.co.uk postcode checker to find the packages available in your area, then compare call rates for Thailand to see if you can save money on your phone bills.