Hi all.
I did a pretty good job with tech on my recent trip to France and Germany (just back last night). However, making calls really didn't work.
I had a local phone package (just changed the sim in my unlocked phone) and it had plenty of data, European call and text available, and a French phone number. I could easily call or text my husband, who had a similar package, so I know for sure calls and text were enabled. But there were two things I couldn't do. Note, if you were using a North American phone plan, I'm not sure we were in the same situation--I am most interested in feedback from those using European phone plans/phone numbers.
--Couldn't figure out how to call North America collect. I needed to talk to my bank, and I couldn't find a way to call collect. No matter how I sliced it, I used minutes on my European line, which had a limited credit for calling outside of the EU. My bank has numbers published and says "call collect from outside Canada" but I had no idea how to get an operator from a European mobile phone. I tried a couple of times but used up the international credit on my phone before I even got off of hold with my bank (€25 worth!). Maybe a land line would have worked, but I had no access to a land line. When I googled "call collect from Europe", I got a TON of different businesses that do it for you, but that seemed sketchy. I did try one--when the call was answered, I asked to confirm that this would not cost me on my European plan, and the "operator" had NO CLUE how to answer my question. She clearly was someone who had taken a work-from-home job and had little or no training. I was not inspired to go forward with them! So--how do you place a collect call these days?
--Second, I could NOT for the life of me figure out how to make local calls or texts. Which numbers do I use? There's a country code then some "+##" stuff that seems to change depending on whether it's local, domestic, or EU. I thought I tried every combination, but nothing worked. (My husband managed to call me from his French plan, and I just then used the number that was in my contacts to reach him after that--but we couldn't recreate it to reach other numbers.) When I tried to call or text our hosts, or local restaurants or whatever, I never once connected.
E.g,. if I am within France trying to call our air bnb local host, I have this number 04 90 43 ## ##. (last four digits masked as # for privacy.) Also rendered as 003349043 ## ##, which I believe includes the country code. What do I actually dial from a French phone that is within France? Similarly we had a host in Germany with a number rendered as +49 177 327 ## ##. How would I call that from France? (EU calls were covered in my plan) What about when I and my French phone plan are in Germany?
Thanks, would love some recent experience that makes sense of this for me. I googled my heart out but never found a solution that I could make work.