Telecom mileage and terrible service
 

Perhaps this posting belongs in the telco section, but I'm posting it here. I'm fed to the gills with MCI's horrible service, so I'm bailing ASAP. I'm looking for new long distance service. Mostly, I call Canada, and the average lowest cost I can find is around .05/per minute. Of course I want to get mileage and sign-up bonuses for switching service. Unfortunately, MCI seems to be the only company that is partnered with everyone, at least as far as I can tell. AT&T is with CO, but I don't have a Onepass account, nor do I intent to create one. I already have tons of miles in my WP account, and I don't want to put miles into a new Onepass account if they can't be moved into WP. Any ideas? Aren't we all sick of terrible customer service?? And finally, let me just add that MCI has the most terrible customer service I've ever received from any telco. Anyway, I'm looking for any advice y'all might have. Thanks everyone!

We do all our LD calling with the AT&T phone card from Sam's Club at 0.034 per minute. They are rechargeable, so we recharge it with our AAdvantage credit card. No signon bonus, but we use the card everywhere we go.

The only long distance I need is to Canada. Any domestic long distance I can do with my cell phone. Does that .0349 rate apply to Canada?

Onesuite is 4.5 cents to Canada. Only way to earn miles is to recharge your minutes with a credit card.

I recently signed up for Sprint - they have a California plan for only $2.00 a month, and offer 5000 (6000 if you get local long distance) miles on Alaska Air.

I don't know the rate for Canada, but it doesn't matter - sign up for the onesuite account (it is only 2.9 cents US 48, and apparently 4.5 to Canada). Set a speed dial number to their access number - and if you call from home you don't even have to enter your PIN.

If Alaska does nothing for you, probably better to just find a plan with no monthly fee, and use onesuite.

I'm checking out OneSuite, and it looks pretty good... lower rates than MCI and no monthly fees. Thanks for the tip.

I also left MCI years ago for the same reason. It just wasn't worth it.

AT&T will give you Starpoints instead of OnePass miles. You have several options when converting StarPoint to miles.

Based on earlier threads I switched and use onesuite almost exclusively now. It has dropped my phone bills from an average of $50 a month to $15, quite a savings.

I use Isterra. No miles and no bonuses, but no min monthly spend and ultra cheap rates. Check out www.lowermybills.com

Also see:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum...ML/001460.html

Catwood, you're acting far too rationally for this board. Wouldn't you rather get the extra 35 FF miles per month than the $35?

I'm always amazed that people fall for this "marketing" gimmick. At the end of the year, the FF junkie who pays MCI rates has 50*12 = 600 miles, plus any bonuses they can scrounge up. The smart money has 15*12 = 180 miles plus $35*12 = $420 in their pocket.

There is a way to get the miles from a major carrier like MCI and still get cheap service from a dial around service. Also, the phone cards mentioned above accomplishes the same thing. Info on the dial around ploy and on most all of the telephone offers can be found on my site below. Click on Free Frequent Flyer Miles in the left menu, then on Phone & ISP offers in the top menu.

------------------
The Personal Travel Experience of Gary Steiger - including how to get free frequent flyer miles on the web.
http://home.earthlink.net/~pgary/TravelFrame.html

We use Isterra at the office for the folks who travel domestically but not enough to require a cell phone. I also use it overseas. It is really inexpensive.

You could always try these two sites. I call overseas frequently and they have some competitive rates.

Acculinq
http://www.acculinq.com

BigZoo
http://www.bigzoo.com

~P

I am interested at getting the Sams Club phone card. However, I read in the PC magazine today that there is a one time set up fee of $8.99. Is this new or incorrect?