Evocallgebraical  

What Is Minute Overrating?

When you search for the best rate for your destination online, a calling card company shows you a cards list. Besides other features, the list contains numbers of phone call minutes available for each card.

These advertised minutes are always overrated as compared to the real minutes you would get with a chosen card. For details read Why Are the Real Phone Call Minutes Fewer than Advertised Ones?

Minute overrating varies from card to card and needs to be evaluated.
I evaluate it as the difference between advertised (AM) and the real minutes (RM) shown in a percentage ratio to the real minutes: (AM - RM)/RM*100%. That's what is minute overrating.

What properties has this phenomenon?

1. Minute overrating depends on how you are employing your phone card. It is minimal if you spend the whole phone card balance for making only one phone talk. But the longer you consume your calling card and the more phone calls you make with it, the higher minute overrating is.
   
   For example, for calling from the USA to Canada with AT&T card, minutes overrating changes from 2% to 42% when a number of phone calls changes from 10 to 100.
   
   
2. Minute overrating differs from card to card. The more fees a card has, the higher minute overrating is.
   
   For example, let's consider Bizon card and Cardinal card for calling from the USA to Canada. The former card has 15% of service tax, and the latter card has not. Minute overrating is 19% and 5% respectively.
   
   
3. The billing increment is one of the fees. The more billing increment a card has, the higher minute overrating.
   
   For example, let's consider Bizon card and Continental card for calling from the USA to Canada. Their rounding is 1 and 3 minutes respectively. Minute overrating is 19% and 44% respectively.

Minute overrating means your actual or potential overpaying. In this connection, I advise to calculate the real minutes you could get with a calling card prepaid online. Calculate them, taking all the card's fees and your individual manner of calling into account. The more fees you will take, the closer a calculated figure to reality will be. Use the free special tool.

To know how much you really get or pay or overpay is always useful. You will get to know yourself what to do with one phone card or another.

In fact, minute overrating means your actual or potential overpaying. But regardless of how much you overpaid because of minute overrating, a calling card keeps cheaper than a regular phone line.

Read other articles on the topic:

• Get to Know Real Phone Call Minutes before Buying a Calling Card
• How to Compare Calling Cards