Rebtel: Tips & Tricks To Get More From Your Free Calls

Now that you know about Rebtel and how you can use it to save money while still making international calls from mobile to mobile, it is time I share some of my tips and tricks. One doesn’t use something for 5 years without figuring out a few things newbies might find useful. 😉

• Sign up using a referral. Have your friend sign up using your referral.

If you sign up using a referral code, Rebtel will usually award you with extra free minutes, or $5 dollars with your first credit purchase. They change their rewards every now and then, so I am not sure which one is valid now.

If you refer a friend and that friend decides to buy Rebtel credit ($10 minimum), you will get free $10 added to your credit. This is why you should have your friend sign up using your referral code.

Here is my referral link and my referral code is: ivy – if you would like to sign up using my referral, I will appreciate it very much! If not, no hard feelings, you can sign up without it.

• First 10 seconds of every call are free.

This is usually enough time to tell your friend “Hi, can you call me back?“. At that point they will hang up and you will not lose your Rebtel minutes or credit. You can check my account history (image at the beginning of this article) to make sure.

However, should your call last longer than that, Rebtel will start counting and in case you have no credit and no free minutes, you will be disconnected. Your friend can still call you back if you stay on the line, but if you are calling someone without Rebtel, the call will be over.

• You can accept collect calls on Rebtel.

If you would like to have your grandmother call you, but you can’t get her to sign up on Rebtel, there is a trick. She can call you on a local number she has been assigned for you and you can set up your Rebtel in Settings > Phones you can choose if you want to automatically accept collect calls.

After the first call, your contact will usually get a text message saying which number they have to call to get you. When your grandmother dials that number, she will, again, pay local call fees to her operator, but your cheap international call will be charged on your Rebtel account.

• Do buy that $10 credit.

You don’t have to, of course, but if you plan to use Rebtel, I would recommend you buy a bit of credit. Sometimes you might want to make a short call and you can’t be bothered waiting for your friend to hang up and call you back. Sometimes you might want to call someone via Rebtel without having them sign up for it, be it a business or an acquaintance.

It is nice to know that, if you have to, you can make a normal Rebtel call to an international number. 10 bucks is not a lot of money and in my experience it lasts months and months…

• Check how to get free local calls.

Some mobile operators will not charge for local calls made from a cell phone. Call your operator and check if they can offer you that option.

• Use your landline.

If you can not get free local calls on your mobile phone, how about using your land line? Many landline operators give free minutes for local calls, you could use Rebtel to turn those minutes into free international calls!

If you already added the number, you can simply pick up the phone and call any of your friends (using local Rebtel number, of course). They will simply call you back on whatever number came up on their phones and you can talk.

If your friend is calling you and your cell phone rings, you can pick up, hang up (to make a free call) and go get your house phone and call your friend from there. You will be connected in a free Rebtel call and you will have switched to a cheaper phone!