I'll be the first to admit that the MCI card is a nice fallback to have when traveling in strange places. That said, I find that local IDD rates are almost always cheaper than MCI. Moreover, it's usually possible to buy IP or IC cards locally with really cheap airtime. For example, the cards I use right now charge me $.158/minute to the US from anywhere in China while the IDD rate is around $.95/minute and the best MCI rate is about $1.70 (although I haven't checked MCI in several months).