So I'm in Western Australia 4x4ing, snorkeling, and fossil hunting in the remote Outback for 6 days. I come back into civilization tired from sleeping in a landcruiser all week and feeling filthy. I find a mom-and-pop hotel in a small town north of Perth but nobody is at reception and I have to call a number to get them. I have a strong signal and am on an AT&T iPhone XS with Daypass International Calling and was receiving and sending data.
I try all kinds of combinations of numbers... calling with 011 then the Aussie country code, and just what looks like the local number, and what looks like the local number plus the local area code. I try every combination of country codes and area codes and local number imaginable; Nothing works. What's really bizarre, is when my iPhone said "dialing..." and told me what number it was dialing, the number was totally different than I had just entered. Same thing happened the next day in Perth; a 1st world (and glorious!) city of 2 million people. I think the service was "VodaPhone"
I'm going to Spain as soon as they start letting Americans in again and I'd like to call to Spanish hotels from my iPhone while in Spain. QUESTION: Is there some trick to calling an overseas number while overseas from an American phone?
Perhaps my experience in Perth was a fluke. Or perhaps I was hallucinating from prolonged dehydration.... or maybe that strange bug that bit me; who knows.