I got an email from Telecel today that states you can use your Amigo pay as you go phone in the US for about 2 pesos per minute. Cards will be available for purchase in the US, but until the distribution is worked out, you can buy cards here, take them with you and you'll be able to add time to your phone by using the standard *333 routine. Take a look here: http://www.telcel.com/portal/micrositios/amigo20/ Tu mejor Amigo te acompaña en todo Estados Unidos. ¡AMIGO!, en esta temporada navideña viaja a Estados Unidos y obtén un 20% de descuento en todas las llamadas entrantes, salientes nacionales e internacionales. Adicional podrás continuar recibiendo mensajes de texto SMS y utilizar los servicios de datos GPRS. También podrás consultar tu buzón de voz, consultar y recargar el saldo de tu línea desde Estados Unidos.
This has been true for a while, I used my TelCel phone in the states back in July but I think it was a brand new thing then.
Let's see...Service available in July. Email notification in December. Sounds about right. Maybe the point of the email was to notify users that the service they weren't aware of now has a 20% discount that they weren't aware of either. That too sounds right.
I never understood the pricing in July. The sales guy that hubby talked to didn't get it all the way. It may be that this is cheaper than it was then.
It does work here, but there are a couple of things to watch out for 1) Very limited outlets where you can buy the top-up cards or get credit applied. Best to stock up with the cards in Mexico 2) The validity of the credit varies by denomination of the last top up. if you had 100 pesos valid to Jan 31st, and you apply a 50 pesos credit, the validity gets cut to 1 month. I bought cards in 100 peso denominations which is the lowest value valid for 2 months 3) Despite what Teclcel tells you, the number to call to apply a credit is NOT *333 as in Mexico. That does not work here. You dial either of the following *133# SEND and select from same options as *333SEND in Mexico or enter it directly *134*ref number#SEND where the reference number is the voucher or scratch-off number in the #134 case, you get an auto-reply SMS confirming application of the credit.
Mix, if you read the fine print (Tarifas en dólares americanos más impuestos) I believe that is $2USD not 2 pesos.
For anyone traveling to the U.S. and planning to use their Telcel Amigo phone.... I've been in Minnesota for a couple of weeks and it roams on AT&T here. I can't make calls. I get a recorded message that says the phone is not authorized to make calls (I have plenty of credit on it). I can receive calls and text messages just fine. Sending text messages is sketchy. They have to be really short or I get a send error. And even then sometimes I have to try to send several times. I was also in Arizona for Christmas. I didn't try making calls there (I should have just to see if it worked there). Everything else was the same as in Minnesota, except that I noticed that it switched back and forth from roaming on AT&T to a direct Telcel signal.
phone and Gringa's messages took about 14-15 hours to arrive in some cases. So not the quickest method, if you need to reach someone fast.
