Outrageous long distance charges

Hey , I am sorry you paid so much, but , you knew better, in that you purchased a phone card so you knew that hotel charges are outrageous.
I have purchased and used phone cards, and I would only phone home from a hotel if someone was dying, that is just a given.

For those of you who don't know, NEVER USE HOTEL PHONE! Figure out how to use the card you bought. In Paris the card we bought did not work at all phone booths, we kept trying and finaly figured it out, we paid about 10 euros for a card that we split between the two of us( my friend and I) and were able to phone the west coast of Canada every day for eight days to check on hubbys and kids.

We have seldom used phones (and then from call centers in big cities like Paris). To keep in touch, we use email and it works just fine and is very cheap. We realize that some are more comfortable w phoning but you pay for what you get. Hotel rates are almost always horrible-- next time you won't use hotel phones, right?

Agreed, it was a bigger mistake than I thought I was getting into. I even had a local internet cafe manager try the phone card on his own phone. He advised I get my money back, which I knew would be hopeless (only 5 Euro).

I used the hotel phone only because I needed to confirm arrangements for pickup at SFO on our return. The rate card for the hotel's service, dialing direct, showed 10 Euro for 5 minutes. I thought I was being clever by using an independent service, accessed through the hotel phone. Their rates weren't posted, and end up around $25/minute. Gag. Never, never, never again.

Sorry. We were in London, so the costs were GBP not Euros.

I use the ekit phone card when I travel. Its about 6 cents a minute plus sometimes a connection fee. People can leave you messages at no cost to them, it gives you an email account where you can listen to your voicemails online. Its a great product. http://ekit.com/ekit/home/

You can let your credit card company know you refuse to pay for those charges and dispute them with the company. At this time that's all you can do. Thats one hard lesson on not ever using hotel phones.

i am sorry for your ridiculous phone charges, but you should have asked before you used the hotel phone.
I stayed once in Niagra Falls, canada at a fancy hotel, with a view to the falls (can't remember the name now) and yES the access fee was $10. I don't know how much was per minute to US, because I didn't want to use it.
You can get an world cell phone, or pre-paid one. on my t-mobile cell phone I pay $.99 from Western Europe and $2.99 from eastern Europe to US.

Sorry for the high cost of your lesson....it happens to all of us one time or another.

I have started to take my AT&T phone with me. Don't sign up for international long distance, but just watch my minutes.

I've really only taken the phone so my family at home can reach me. it's too hard with our trips to have the phone number of each hotel available, and sometimes it's hard for family members to figure out the international codes to dial Europe!

My phone bills from the last couple of trips have been about $25-35 higher than normal. I've spent maybe 30 min on my phone in a 2 week period.

Phone cards can be hard to use...we've tried them a couple of times and it's frustrating when you read the instructions, follow them to the letter and still the call won't go through!

Thanks to all for your comments, sympathetic or otherwise. This was the first time on many trips that I used a phone, rather than email. I confess, I did not pay attention. The rates to use the hotel's service, directly dialing, and added to the hotel bill looked high, but not outrageous ($10/5 minutes). It was the the outside service on the brochure next to the phone that I, regrettably, used, without looking into rates, which I presumed would be similar.

Never again. Period. Out.

Be aware that it is not just hotel phones that have these outrageous charges. Many other pay phones will have the "credit card calls to the US/Canada" information posted near them. It is the same overpriced service.

I sympathize with you because I fell victim to this scam in Germany one summer. I made a collect phone call from a payhone using the "handy" number that was posted inside the phone booth. The charges were outrageous. I learned from my mistake.

There may yet be a "happy" ending. The hotel manager sent my complaint to the phone company rep, threatening to cancel their arrangement. The phone company BBGComm, contacted me, and offered to refund about 80% of the charges. They told me it would take 1-2 billing cycles, so I remain skeptical. They also suggested I should have checked the rates before placing the call, but the automated system did not include that as an option.

A Google search of BBGComm brought up some very scary stuff. More to follow.
Jerry

The convenience of a cell phone with a local number; the ability to call each other for pennies a minute; 50 cents to call home; no roaming charges; flexibility to receive calls so you don't have to hang on (had my US bank call me back) and more. All you need is an inexpensive, unlocked tri/quad band phone purchasable here and a local SIM card. Worked wonderfully. And I posted in the Technology section step by step to do it all.

Happy ending, for the most part. Shirley, the manager of The Westland Hotel in London (a terrific place to stay!) contacted the long distance vendor. They refunded my credit cards the $10 connect charge on each of my 3 calls, as well as 80% of the charges for the calls. In the end it was about $8 for each call, each under 2 minutes. Shirley has decided to remove all the promo materials for BBGComm from the hotel.

This has been a difficult, but valuable lesson. Thanks for all your ideas.

I've had good luck with PIN Cards but only the ones that are designed for single countries.

I also got a great deal at an internet cafe that advertised long-distance calls.