@BearFBI
If you notice the " more the merrier" gift of 500 international calling minutes is the same as the previous 400 international minutes for $15 ( except for the extra 100 minutes) as it includes Canada and the US. The new $15/300 min add on does not....this is the reason for the difference in price along with the additonal countries included in the add on such as the Republic of Ireland. So there were additional countries added that were formerly inaccessible for pm customers to call and there is no chance of defaulting and using these more expensive minutes to call Canada ($0.01 p/min) or the US (formerly $0.04/0.0375 p/min now $0.015 p/min).
Comparitively pm overall has the cheapest long distance rates of all providers with exception of the odd country here or there like lucky's $5/40 min to the Phillippines ($0.125 vs $0.15 p/min) however the add on minutes do not roll over. Most of the providers charge a monthly fee of $5-$7 for their discounted rates or on average $1.50+p/min without the monthly fee. Many had comparable rates to a few popular and populous countries ( India $0.02 p/min and China $0.02-$0.05 p/min) but the other country I checked for comparison Ireland averaged $0.18 p/min except for fido which offered $0.01 p/min to landlines ( which nobody has due to their longtime prohibitive cost) and $0.25 p/min to mobile phones.
So despite pm raising the cost of one add on while adding value to it they lowered the overall cost to the most frequently called countries and of course all of pm's add ons roll over ( except US roaming ones) and their are no additional minute/overage rates when you exceed your alottment which averaged $0.95 p/min with several providers. And no monthly fees to access discounted long distance rates.
