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Hotel Telephone Charges - and how to avoid them...(cont.)
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page 1
Get an actual break-down
of the per-minute charges, if necessary in writing, and keep an
eye on the clock when making phone calls. If you intend to make
a number of calls it might be an idea to keep a small notepad
handy to record the start and finish times of the calls to check
against your bill when you check out. It may seem a little bit
over the top to do so, but better to be safe than sorry when it
comes to paying for things that you haven't used. |
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"Dropped lines" can also be a source of fees for hotels
when it comes to telephone calls. Find out if you will be expected
to pay for a phone call even if you didn’t get connected -
for example, if the phone you are calling is busy, or the phone
line drops off before you can connect or during the call. International
operators will reconnect a call that has been disrupted for whatever
reason free of charge, but some hotels will charge a service fee
for attempting to make the connection and any subsequent re-connections,
and this can be particularly expensive if you’re trying to
make long-distance calls (especially during high traffic times like
public holidays) and the connection keeps dropping. You may also
want to know if the hotel has a policy for charging additional fees
for trying to connect you during peak times (such as public holidays
and other high traffic times).
If you use your laptop to connect to the Internet find out what
the per minute charges will be, even if you’re connecting
to a ‘freephone’ number. Many hotels introduce higher
charges the longer you are connected in an effort to discourage
people who stay connected for very lengthy periods of time and this
is precisely the reason behind per-minute ‘freephone’
charges. If you need to do some serious Internet activity, consider
using a hotel computer (most have them these days). Even if there
are charges for the use of this computer it is likely to be much
less than if you connect directly from your room. You can always
connect privately if you need to send e-mails and the like (a word
of caution if you use public computers; make sure that you don’t
send or type anything that you consider to be confidential or do
not wish to make public, even if you are told that the computer
is safe).
Some options to help bypass the hotel telephone shock might be to
use your mobile phone, although ironically there has been some suggestion
that the reason that hotel telephone charges are increasing dramatically
is to actually counter the use of mobile telephones by the hotel’s
guests. It seems that many hotels are not making as much money these
days from the use of telephones because an increasing number of
their guests choose to use their mobile instead. |
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