SIM cards purchase in Austria
 

Hi all,

I'm visiting Graz, Austria in June and July for 10 days, and looking
for a good prepaid SIM card for me and my group members. We all have
unlocked cell phones, so all we need is local SIM cards. I've found A1's
B-Free 5, T-Mobile's Klax Club and Orange's Orange Wertkarte attractive.

My questions are:
1) Are all those SIM card easily available at the Graz/Vienna airport? If not, where can I get them, including recharge?
2) If I bought T-Mobile's Klax Start, how do I switch to Klax Club?
Is that easy and with no extra payment involved?
3)Are there any general suggestions for short-term visitors using cell
phones in Austria?

Sincerely,
Hiroshi

I recommend you to buy a telering SIM or a Yesss! SIM which are 7 ct/min to all austrian networks. Recharge vouchers for telering you will find in filling stations etc.

The Yesss! stuff (including top ups) is sold in the HOFER supermarket shops (austrian version of ALDI).

There are no passports or other documents, addresses needed in Austria to buy prepaid SIMs. Just buy and call.

Thanks!
 

Dear 9eor9,

Thanks! I will definitely follow your suggestions.

One cofirmation I would like to make is if a telering SIM or a Yesss! SIM are available somewhere in Vienna Airport. I bet they are, but if you or someone else here know about it for sure, would you let me know? This is going to be my first trip to Europe ever, and I don't speak German. So the smallest piece of info would be of great help.

Best,

There are no Telering shops at the Airport and I doubt there's a Hofer too.
BTW you can find Telering shops here:
tele.ring - Shops
they are in some of the most central and touristic spots in Vienna, you should have no problems to find them.

I appreciate the info. Without it, I might have run everywhere in the airport buildings for a Telering shop. I've found this forum very useful. Thanks again.

Best,

Also for Yesss there are many Hofer shops all over Austria. They are a discount supermarket chain that sell groceries and always have many weekly non-grocery specials. If you to to Hofer - Filialstandorte and put in "Wien" in the second box where says "Ort" it will show you the locations of every Hofer Store in Vienna. (there are 20 listed in Vienna) Likewise, you could put "Graz" in there and you will find there are 20 in the Graz area as well. I am sure there will be one within easy walking distance of your hotel.

Thanks for the additional info.

Probably these are my last quesitons. I believe there is no charge for in-coming calls when you use Telering, Yessss! or any local SIMs for that matter. Am I right?

In the case of Telering, a page of this website says :
Activation/credit Voice sim: 9.90/ 5.00

I understand this means you have 4.90 Euros worth of Airtime with the sim.
Telering charges 0.069 Euros per minute, so with this sim, you can make approximantely 70-minute-long call, and receive an unlimited number of incoming calls.

Hope I am right on these.

Cheers,

All incoming calls, while in Austria, are free of charge.
A Telering starting kit costs 9.90 including 5.00 of credit, if it didn't change in the meanwhile after the last update of this website. Calls are billed at 60 seconds interval.

Back from Austria
 

Hi,

I'm back from Austria. I learned that Telering offers the "Mucke Amigo" plan that costs you only one cent per minute bw Telering users. Also, they sell Samsung's E1120 for 29 Euros that includes a prepaid SIM with one Euro worth airtime.

Hope this info is of some help.

BTW, I'm wondering how I can know how much credit I have left in my prepaid SIM card. Actually I've got four of those SIM cards. I'm going to Italy in August, and am wondering if there is a good way to make most of the SIM cards I bought in Austria. I may not use a cell phone at all in Italy, but it's worthwhile to know.

Cheers

Checking the balance of your telering acount is quite easy:

You dial *102# send and you will receive a message with the current balance and the date of expiry of your SIM.

You can use your SIM in Italy, outgoing calls to Italy and other EU countries are in about 51ct/min, incoming calls around 22 ct/min. They will send you a SMS automatically with the exact rates as soon as your SIM has found an italian network.

SMS to Italy and all other EU networks are now limited to 13 ct, before they were ca. 49ct.