News and Views

Administrative Note

Phonecards On-Line will now be stored at the Card Mall (http://www.cardmall.com) All back issues have also been moved to that site. However, the newsletter will still be available from the PCM site. If you run a web site and have a pointer, please update your web page to reflect this change. The full address is: http://www.cardmall.com/pol/phonline.htm

Oh Canada!

This past weekend I had the pleasure of spending some time in Canada. It had been a few months since I visited, I always like to see what progress has been made with phonecard collecting and availability. My one major comment is that Canada really has its act together. They say they are going to do something, and they do it. Bell set a goal to have their phones be able to process chip cards, and every phone I saw in Ontario and Quebec had a slot to put your card in. The last time I visited, the only chip cards were available in Quebec. This is no longer the case. Bell still sells chip and remote access cards. I spoke at length with a saleswoman at a Bell phone centre, and she said that the chip cards were really selling quite well. They even had a nice display set up in the shop. The nice thing about these cards is that when used for a local call, only 25 cents is deducted. When using for a long distance call, that amount is deducted. I checked around the phones I saw, no used cards were found - Perhaps people are holding onto the cards? One can only hope.

Bell appears to be the only company issuing chip cards. There are many other companies offering remote access cards though. The phone rates were only slightly better for international cards from the non-Bell cards. I received 11 minutes from one company, and only 10 minutes from Bell. It was an opportunity to purchase and use Canadian phonecards. In Montreal, I was able to purchase an older Bell card, which was a surprise.

Pepsi Promotion

Producing phonecards is nothing new for Pepsi. They have sponsored numerous giveaways, including a holiday giveaway in 1994, and more recently the Pepsi Congo cards. Over the next 7 months, Pepsi will offer a promotion for people to acquire Pepsi products by simply drinking Pepsi products. You collect "Pepsi Points" by drinking the product, and turning in those points for products. One of those products happens to be a phonecard. You will need 35 Pepsi points to get a card, denomination unknown. However, Pepsi will let you "buy" a Pepsi point for 10 cents, provided that you have at least 20 points. This means a phonecard can be yours for 20 points (It is unknown to me what it takes to get a point) plus $1.50. More news as it develops.

Score Board / McDonalds Agreement

This news came to me last week as I was about to release the newsletter. Score Board, known to many in the phonecard hobby as Classic, will be mass producing McDonalds cards. I am not too enthusiastic about this. Corporate cards have become quite popular over the past year, but recently overproduction of these cards, especially Coke and McDonalds, have hurt the hobby. Note that I do not believe that it is necessarily Classic's fault, these logos have been seen in too many places. I don't think that the market is really there to support a whole series of McDonalds cards. I may be wrong, but I don't think so. What will most likely happen is some collectors may become disgusted and stop actively collecting. One thing for sure, Classic really is positioning itself as a major force in the hobby. Their past performance does not impress me, and let this serve notice that many in the hobby will actively monitor their every move, and report it if they lapse into past practices of overproducing their product.

Promotions

Reverse Offer?

Purchase of a $20.00 phonecard at SuperAmerica you will receive a free Tombstone Pizza. I don't know if they are selling pizzas or phonecards but this is a current offer in the Twin Cities Mpls/St.Paul (ed note - This is the first time I have seen something given away with the purchase of a phonecard, I doubt there are any frozen pizza collectors though - They might end up with a stack of phonecards)
From: Robert W. Burmeister

Maxwell House

Maxwell House Coffee has a phonecard available with the purchase of a package of Sweetened Flavored Ground Coffee. You also need two Perk Points (UPC symbols from any Maxwell House Coffee - I think the Sweetened Flavored Ground counts as one plus 99 cents.
From: Rick Heckbert

GE Phonecard

Buy a specially marked twin pack of GE Soft White Miser light bulb, that is giving away a FREE GE/NBC phonecard. You just send in the form (included in twin pack) and 2 UPC's. Limit is 2 per household
From: Kim Ogi

Until Next week, Happy Collecting,

Alan

Distribution

Phonecards On-Line is written and distributed by Alan Cohen. It is a weekly newsletter devoted to phonecards - Current news, viewpoints, and reviews of new issues. It is distributed free of charge, and available two ways.

1) On-Line on the World Wide Web. The address is: http://www.cardmall.com

2) Direct e-mail. Send a message to: phoneline@cardmall.com

If you wish to be removed from this mailing list, or find yourself with two subscriptions (It does happen), please reply to the ORIGINAL message that was sent to you - This will assist me in removing your name