I need a US SIM Card for UK Mobile...Help?

Wasn't sure where to put this really...but chitchat sounded like a good home!

In a week's time I'll be heading to the US for a short holiday.  I've just realized that my cell phone plan has now been cancelled, so need to figure out a new way to contact people.   I had a quick chat with the people at O2, who said that it will cost a whopping £1.49 per minute to make a call in the US to a US number. 

I'm wondering now:

 A- Has anyone ever used their UK mobile with a US SIM card? This is looking like the cheapest option, but would mean I need to unlock my phone (I think?)

 B- How would one go about unlocking a UK Mobile on O2 (It's a quad-band Palm Pixi Plus) And, if anyone knows the difference between unlocking/ unblocking/ jailbreaking, that would be great to know!

 C- Would I be able to buy a SIM card in the airport (EWR)? I've only ever really seen these things at like Walmart or Target....I read on the EWR website that they have a mobile phone accessories shop, so maybe it would be worth ringing them to find out if they sell SIMs too.

 D- Can anybody recommend a good PAYG SIM card to use in the US??  I'm pretty sure anything will be better than  £1.49/minute!

Thanks so much in advance!! I feel completely clueless here!

A-Yes I used a sim card. Your phone needs to be unlocked and quadband.

B-You can get it done in any phone shop in the uk (doesn't need to be O2) for about a fiver. You can also unlock it with an unlock code from ebay for 99p. I use this option everytime and it always works (it's permanent). Just ebay search for "unlock palm pixi plus" and you'll get loads of results.

C-I usually see them at the airports I travel to in the US.

D-Can't help you there, I use different ones all the time as I forget the previous one.

I answered this last week for someone else but here ya go...

I have an unlocked iphone...I just ordered a sim card from mrsimcard for my iphone and I paid per month but for 160 bucks for 2 fill months of data/unlimited text (including UK text) and unlimited calls it was well worth it.

I dont use it till August 1 but it is shopped already to my moms so when aug 1st hits my lil brother can test it in his iphone before I get there.  I have read on flight forum that was a good website and when I called they were very nice.

I will post back after vaca and tell ya if it works as well as everything I read said it did ;-)

Wasn't sure where to put this really...but chitchat sounded like a good home!

In a week's time I'll be heading to the US for a short holiday.  I've just realized that my cell phone plan has now been cancelled, so need to figure out a new way to contact people.   I had a quick chat with the people at O2, who said that it will cost a whopping £1.49 per minute to make a call in the US to a US number. 

I'm wondering now:

 B- How would one go about unlocking a UK Mobile on O2 (It's a quad-band Palm Pixi Plus) And, if anyone knows the difference between unlocking/ unblocking/ jailbreaking, that would be great to know!

If youre on a monthly contract (even if its a 30 day rolling sim) O2 will unlock your phone for free and it requires no software. It can take up to a week for them to email you the unlock code (which is the downside) but this wont void the warranty if the provider does it themselves.

We have been using a tmobile US sim card for years so I am not sure how it currently works but for us we went to Tmobile in the US and bought the card only- It wasn't very much and just top it up.  When we bought it you had to top it up every 90 days so your number didn't expire but once you put on $100 your number won't expire for a year so now we just put on $10 once a year for the most part.  I think it is $.10/min to talk not sure about texts but i think they are the same.

Oh- we also just use a unlocked quadband phone and swap it in when we land.  Works great!!

DW bought a trac phone on one of our visits to the US and just tops that up when she goes over and uses that.
It cost about $30 for the phone and gave $30 in credit.

I answered this last week for someone else but here ya go...

Sorry, I did a quick search, but couldn't seem to find anything.

Thanks everyone so much for your answers!! I'll have a look at T-mobile and AT&T to get a better idea of pricing/see if I can get some sort of data package. I know it's pathetic, but I now can't imagine life without a smartphone!   

Sorry, I did a quick search, but couldn't seem to find anything.

Thanks everyone so much for your answers!! I'll have a look at T-mobile and AT&T to get a better idea of pricing/see if I can get some sort of data package. I know it's pathetic, but I now can't imagine life without a smartphone!   

You're not alone.  I'm keeping an eye on this thread and shopping for a SIM for my upcoming visit to the states at the end of October.

Most Pay as you go SIM offers in the US seem to give info for calls, but not for internet / international usage.  Also, if you go with the AT&T smartphone SIM would that go towards their £100 / yr to keep your number deal?

I haven't read all the responses, but I went into the O2 shop yesterday to ask about using my phone in the US, so they told me to contact O2 customer service and ask them to unlock the phone, and I can then buy a US sim card when i get to the states. When I went to the states in Feb I saw a kiosk in the airport selling sim cards...

Also the guy told me to use Wi-Fi where ever possible to do things like uploading photos to facebook stuff like that. I will let you know more when i do!!

Just to update--

I had problems unlocking my phone, so just bought a cheap PAYG from Sprint when I got into NY Penn Station. (All the shops in EWR were only accessible after security, if you had a connecting flight...which I didn't)

The phone was $10, and the smallest amount of credit I could put on was $25. So I still have about $10 worth of credit on it. Thinking I'll top up just before it expires so I can use it over Christmas too.  There were two main options:
-$2/day with unlimited calls/texts to the US (and 100 other countries,  but NOT including UK)
- 0.10/min calls, 0.20 texts to US, 0.25 texts to int'l countries (including UK).

Honestly, it wasn't bad not having access to a smart phone. (Though I carried both around the whole time.)

The phone was $10, and the smallest amount of credit I could put on was $25. So I still have about $10 worth of credit on it. Thinking I'll top up just before it expires so I can use it over Christmas too.  There were two main options:
-$2/day with unlimited calls/texts to the US (and 100 other countries,  but NOT including UK)
- 0.10/min calls, 0.20 texts to US, 0.25 texts to int'l countries (including UK).

Thanks for the info! The $2/day option sounds perfect as we'll be in the US for 2 weeks in November. I hope I can skip the phone and just get a US SIM card since my phone is unlocked, but good to know the phone's cheap, too.

E - what kind of phone do you have? I can also post you my US iphone sim card when I am done so you can just add credit to it.

My little brother is testing this SIM on Sunday (I paid for 2 months of unlimited service)

Also I have a virgin US phone that I paid maybe $40 bucks and they do that $25 a month unlimited everything - I havent topped it up so I lost the # but *shrug* don't matter to me I use my google voice number.

E - what kind of phone do you have? I can also post you my US iphone sim card when I am done so you can just add credit to it.

I've got an iPhone 4.

darn..the sim card is different

darn..the sim card is different

Yeah, it needs the micro-sim. I know here they wouldn't do PAYG sims for the iphone 4, so it may be the same in the US. Not a huge deal, though.

I know my stepdad wants to/has upgraded his iPhone 3 to a 4, so I might be able to steal the 3 to use, if he hasn't gotten rid of it.