Skype Promotion - $9.99 U.s. Per Mo. For Unlimited Us And Thai Calls

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I got caught up yesterday in the coming MS Messenger and Skype integration fiasco, but out of that mess came an interesting offer and subscription plan from Skype.

For an ongoing rate of $9.99 per month, a plan they call Skype Premium with Unlimited World offers unlimited calling to regular mobile and landline numbers in the U.S., Thailand, and a bunch of other countries (via your own Wifi or data connection, of course). And Skype is offering the first month of service for free. The comparable plan Skype has offered in the past was priced at $13.99 U.S.

The website for redeeming that offer is located here:

http://www.skype.com/en/offers/skype-with-love/

Skype can be somewhat confusing about this, as they have two different kinds of Unlimited World plans -- one that includes Thailand calls, and the other that does NOT.

As you can see from this screen cap, the promo offer does include Skype calls to landlines and mobiles in Thailand.

For roughly 300 baht per month, for me, it's a great alternative to the wife burning up/piling up her Thai mobile minutes calling Mom and other family members who don't have or use smartphones / data calling.

[muratremix]

There must be a fair use limit for these calls, however if someone is talking for hours, this may be a good alternative.

[Ticketmaster]

Try DeeDial. With its ringback service you can call the US for about i baht a minute with NO mobile phone charges. And you don't have to screw around with using your own data connection. Call using only your mobile without paying DTAC or AIS.

[lomatopo]

^ I think the OP was recommending this promotion as much for inexpensive out-bound intra-Thailand VoIP calling, as anything else? So for the spouse who calls a lot of people, she can now sit at the PC and ring family-friends in Thailand and talk for a long time. If the spouse talks for 300 - 600 minutes per month this promotion might be economical in and of itself. Make sure you check the duration of this promotion as Skype may only commit to that pricing for some fixed period?

I mostly use Google Voice for free calling to the U.S., and of course people in the U.S. can call me on my GV number in the U.S. which rings through to wherever I happen to be; I use GrooVeIP on my Android phone for Google Voice but am thinking of getting an Obi ATA which support GV.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

That's correct, Loma... Lots of other basically free or low cost options for calling the U.S. from Thailand, including Google Voice and GrooveIP, etc. Even the rate for MagicJack calls to the U.S. and Canada after purchasing the device works out to only $2.50 a month ($29.95 per year).

But it isn't my wife sitting at the PC calling her non-Wifi or 3G possessing relatives. It's her calling them on her Android mobile phone with the Skype app installed. So it's just the same as making a regular phone call to any mobile or landline number in Thailand -- except, she needs a data connection (which she already has at home and work) and she's using ZERO of the mobile phone minutes in the process.

Right now, with AIS for example, the normal calling rates work out to about 1 baht per minute, with 200 or 300 baht (and 200 or 300 minutes per month), plus 1.5 baht per minute for extra calling time, as the minimum plans offered via postpaid. So her normal calling usage was adding up to 500 baht or more bills per month. But that was with modest calling and the usage would vary a lot month to month.

So now, instead of upping the minutes of her AIS mobile plan and wondering what the bill is going to be every month, I'll switch to the minimum 200 baht/200 minutes AIS plan and spend the other $10/300 baht on the Skype plan. That way, she can call and talk to her family members as long as she wants, not worry about the time or cost, and the bill still will be capped at $10/300 baht per month.

That, and, if I have some Thailand calling where I expect I'm going to rack up a lot of minutes for some reason in the month, I can use the same Skype account as well to cover that calling.

Of course, that's my particular interest in this plan. But for $10 a month, it might also be of interest to people who need to call one or more of the various other countries included in the Skype plan. Although Thailand and the U.S. are among the main mobile and landline areas covered, by my count, there are 34 other countries included for landline calls, including Japan, the UK, and much of Europe. Not bad for one fixed price.

The other nice part of this Skype promotion is that the same service pretty much had been priced at $14 a month previously. And from all indications, the $9.99 a month rate isn't a limited time offering that will revert to the higher rate in the near future. So if someone signs up for it now while the promo is being offered, they can expect to keep that rate at least for the foreseeable future.

And yes, Skype does has a fair use policy for their "unlimited" calling plans. But it's certainly not anything that's going to cause a problem for a single account user using the service for their personal calling through the month. Now if someone was trying to use the Skype plan to run a call center operation, that I suspect would be a different matter.

Edited March 27, 2013 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Try DeeDial. With its ringback service you can call the US for about i baht a minute with NO mobile phone charges. And you don't have to screw around with using your own data connection. Call using only your mobile without paying DTAC or AIS.

It looks like their rates for calling either Thailand or U.S. numbers are 0.7 baht per minute, or roughly 2 cents U.S.-- just somewhat lower than the typical 1 baht per minute calls available through the Thai mobile carriers.

But you still need to be paying for Thai mobile phone number and some basic service level. And you're still having to use your mobile phone service/account every time to call the DeeDial local access number, along with the bit more hassle of having to dial two numbers for every call (the DD local access number and then the number you're actually calling).

It looks to me as though they do have a Direct Call feature, although that would still consume local calling minutes on your Thai mobile service. Their way to avoid that is through their Call Back service, where you have to call their local access number, and then their system calls you back and allows you to proceed with the desired call.