Tips on Calling Mexico

March 03, 2010

If you need to make international calls to Mexico and don't know where to begin, then here are a few pointers to get you started:

Tip no. 1: use a prepaid calling card - this will save you a lot of money, especially if you'll need to make international calls on a constant basis. In fact, using a BananaCall phone card to make calls to Mexico will result in you paying significantly lower rates than if you were to call through your standard landline or cell service.

Tip no. 2: dialing using your phone card - when you plan to make an international call using your BananaCall card, here's what you need to do:

Step 1 - dial the access number given to you. Either the toll free access number, delivered with your phone card details, or one of the local access numbers you can find here: local access numbers; using a local access will save you even more on long distance calls.

Step 2 - after you've entered the access number, you will be prompted to enter your PIN – which is also delivered to you along with your calling card details. With BananaCall, you can make this entire process a lot simpler and faster, by using PINless dialing. With this option activated, you will not be asked to enter the PIN, instead you'll skip directly to ...

Step 3 - entering the destination number. This will have to be in international format, as shown below.

Tip no. 3: Mexico's country and area codes - when you want to connect to an international phone destination, you will need to dial the country code and any other regional codes, if they apply. In the specific case of calling Mexico you will need to dial 011 if you call from US (this is the access code) and then dial 52, which is Mexico’s country code. After this, most Mexico phone destinations require that you dial a 3-digit area code and then a 7-digit phone number. The few exceptions are when calling ...

- Mexico City: in this case, you need to dial "55" (area code) + an 8-digit phone number
- Guadalajara: area code "33" + an 8-digit phone number
- Monterrey: area code "81" + an 8-digit phone number

Dialing the destination number can also be simplified when using BananaCall, by configuring Speed Dial. This particular option available with all BananaCall prepaid phone cards allows you to register up to 9 phone numbers and when asked to enter the destination number you'll only need to dial the star key (*) followed by one digit, to which you have assigned that particular destination number.

You might also need to take into account that Mexico's time zone is UTC/GMT -6 hours, so you don't call at inappropriate hours.