Ladies whose pilots fly over the pond(s)....ie: international flying

[lucky81698]

I looked on the CAL "crackpipe". It seems T-Mobile and Cingular both offer international plans for no monthly fee, calls from Europe are 99 cents a minute on both. Some use international calling cards as well.

[roz]

Did they mention South America and the Caribbean, Jan?

[Kristie]

Originally Posted by Amanda

I'm glad you posted this since I have the same questions.
So far we have only texted while he is out of the country. Normally we pay $5 unlimite text and picture messages but when he's Int'l it costs .35 for each one.

We need to figure out the calling. Both of us have T-Mobile.

we have the same thing.. t-mobile.. the great thing about tmobile is that we can use our phones overseas which is awesome (just gotta turn on the international calling option)... but it's still expensive to physically call from one country to the other.

$99/minute is what Tmobile offers as part of the typical plan...it's really not even close to cheap enuff for me. txt messaging would be cheaper.

[katherine2473]

Well, as someone who lives in London with a SO in Chicago, welcome to my life!!
OK, this is what we have found... Skype is marvellous! If you get him a laptop with a built in webcam and a wireless card, your DH can Skype you face to face whenever he gets to the hotel without needing to pay. Problem is time differences etc! I wouldn't go down that route until you've tried without for a few months as it is expensive (and he could risk having it confiscated if he flies into Mexico - as we found out yesterday when PJ had to beg the customs man to let him hang onto his portable DVD player I got him for Easter).
Sprint is ridiculously cheap for international calls - I think it's 6c a minute or something. However..., PJ has never been able to text me - he can receive them internationally but not send them. He is now changing to Cingular or T-Mobile because texts are nice, especially when he's only got a few mins between flights. Does your husband's airline have any deals with any of the service providers? United offer loads of savings and I'm sure the other international boys do too. Worth checking. Remember he'll need a quadband phone, which by the sounds of it not many providers offer - T Mobile may well have the monopoly there alas.
I did, don't laugh, see something in the Skymall magazine on my way back from Chicago on Mon - an internationla phone for a one off charge of $60 or so, no roaming rates, cheapest available local rates for international calls with calls charges directly to your credit card. Might be worth looking into that?
Long distance calling cards are v useful but I find a bit of a hassle. Frankly our phone bills are always going to be enormous and I couldn't be bothered to spend the time faffing about dialling different numbers - but that's mainly laziness on my part!
And flexibility flexibility flexibility! Be prepared for middle of the night phone calls lasting 2 mins cos that's all the time he's got and he's 6 hours ahead of you or 8 hours behind etc and for his body clock to be utterly screwed etc.
But hey, we manage it so you'll do just fine!
Katherine

[Amanda]

With T-Mobile it is .35 cents for him to send a picture or text message from out of the country. I think it is free for him to receive them from me. I called T-Mobile yesterday and they confirmed the .99 cents/minute for international. I only cjhecked for Europe, not S. America Roz. Let us know what you find.

[lucky81698]

Originally Posted by roz

Did they mention South America and the Caribbean, Jan?

Roz,

The posts I saw were mainly talking about Europe. But one guy said he used some sort of sim phone and it worked everywhere he went in the Caribbean, Central America and South America except for one country in northern South America (he couldn't recall which one). There are also some sort of sim cards you can purchase. No one really explained exactly what they are or what a sim phone is. Maybe the cell phone companies can help you out with that.

Jan

[Kristie]

If you get him a laptop with a built in webcam and a wireless card, your DH can Skype you face to face whenever he gets to the hotel without needing to pay

wait... so do flight crews then get internet free in their hotel room in order to hook up? cuz you have to have internet access in order to even the use skype phones dont you (we have ones that plug into the USB cable)?

every hotel i've been at overseas has had a $15-20 daily fee in order to access the internet which obviously makes it more expensive.. but if he doesn't need the internet access to use his skype phone, then that would work better!

so can you also call DH? or is it only that he can call you using skype?

I too have heard about the sim phones...some of the DAL pilots say that United-Mobile is a good sim phone.. others use things like CallBackWorld which has a cost of i think $0.14/minute from europe to US... apparently the sim cards are "time only" payments where there's no monthly fee or what not. you just have to be able to get your phone "unlocked".

apparently, United-Mobile uses Liechtenstein phone numbers...

the other idea that someone had was using a 1800 number from CallBackWorld that forwards to the phone overseas...it costs the caller nothing.

i found out today that prepaidgsm.net has a bunch of options on there.

I don't quite understand the whole sim concept, so i still have some research to do there in which the above website should help. If anyone else knows more, let us know!!

[Kristie]

here's one answer i got over on JC

Well I'm not an international wife, but an international son, so can I answer your questions?

Assuming you say yes, here I go.

Communication: Dad uses T-mobile, 99 cents a minute for short calls. Usually he doesn't call for the 24 hours that he is over there but he has that as an option.

Schedules: He usually bids for 6 or 9 day blocks of work to minimize the commutes. A 6 day and a 9 day is a high time line, and 2 6 days is a low time line. he tries to limit it to 2 commutes for the month.

Housing: He has a crashpad in the Portuguese neighborhood in Elizabeth, NJ, just a few minutes from the parking lot in EWR. Its the upstairs of a ladys house. I've spent the night there a couple of times, so its definitely possible for a wife to stay there if you were traveling with him. It is a true crashpad though, something live 7 beds in a 3 bedroom apt., small kitchen and one bathroom. I would not want to stay there on reserve but as a line holder for a couple of nights a month it works fine.

Transportation: He has a car down there, its good to go around the area to alleviate the boredom that is crashpad life, and to go between the airport and his place. I'm not sure what the public transportation system is like over at JFK

Feel free to copy this over at Jetgirls, I don't have an account over there.

[lucky81698]

Kristie,

The crashpad thing depends on the individual crashpad owner. I would not even be allowed in my husband's. No guests are not permitted at all. I have heard of others where in an emergency type situation a wife has stayed.

[Kristie]

good to know! thanks!