The UK works on what is called a “caller pays” system. This means that there are very few numbers in the UK that are free to call (from within the UK — stand by for why this matters to Americans with Vonage).

The ONLY calls that are free to the caller to make are called “freephone” and start with 0800, like the American 1-800.

All other calls — regardless of how far you’re calling — have a per-minute charge associated with them. Even if you’re in the UK dialling your next-door neighbour, you are going to pay a per-minute charge. (By contrast, in the US, numbers within a certain distance of you are included in your monthly line charge.)

Certain numbers are cheaper to call than others — an 0844 or 0845 number is a “split” charge, where you pay part of the charge and the person you’re calling pays part of the charge. And an 0870 or 0871 number is paid for wholly by the caller, much like a 900 or 976 number in the US.

While I agree that a recording would be nice, I can see that with 190 countries (or whatever) each with their own weird dialling rules the administrative burden would be significant.

In any case, it’s not really the hotel’s problem. The money went from Vonage (who chose not to include 0870 and 0871 numbers in their all-you-can-dial plans) straight to British Telecom. With 0871 numbers, the hotel does get a 2p per minute kickback, which is meant to recover the annual cost of the line (currently £79 per incoming line). Had you been dialling an 0844 or 0855 number, it would have been half the price ($16.50), and had the hotel had an 0800 number for incoming room calls (highly, highly unlikely — 0800 numbers typically cost the owner £100 per year each and 10p per minute), it would have been free to you. So it was a fee, yes, and a stupid one from an American point of view, but not a hotel fee, not imposed by the hotel.

You could lobby Vonage to see if they would be willing to include these numbers but at those prices (from the UK, about 7p per minute, or US$0.15) unlikely.

Now, none of this excuses the hotel from having the equivalent of a 1-900 number… but I suspect that most foreigners don’t know or don’t care about the charge. I would call the hotel and insist that the local number be published on the website.

Mary Vella says “Our phone service includes free calls to England”. Not completely true – if she asks them they will tell her that calls to UK numbers beginning 01/02/03 are free but I’d bet that calls to 07 numbers (cell phone/mobile) are not. We have the principle that cell phones have a discrete set of numbers which are charged at a higher rate to caller.
Receiving calls on a cell phone is free in the UK (as long as the UK is your home country and you are not roaming from a different country).

We also have some numbers starting 08 which have a range of prices – from free to quite a lot – and some of them result in the called party getting some money for incoming calls.

My guess is that the hotel has a UK 0870 xxxxxxxx number which generates revenue from incoming calls – which annoys UK callers too.

Her telephone provider is being economical with the truth when saying
that calls to England are free – only some are.

The charge is disclosed on their (Vonage’s) website.:-

http://www.vonage.com/intplans_details.php

“Please note: International Calling Plans do not apply to certain call types, such as cell phones and other non-geographic and special numbers.”

Quite how a resident of the US is to know what constitutes a “non-geographic” number in the UK…. I don’t know. But I’m not sure there’s room for a dispute.

I am getting over it after hashing it out on this blog but it’s just really annoying to discover after the fact that I was “taken”.

Thanks for the support and attempts to figure this all out.

I suspect the hotel will receive a portion of the call charge, they certainly would if you were calling from the UK. It may however only be a portion from the local telecoms company that handled the call once it reached the UK.
On the flip side they would probably have paid money to get the number in the first place and “offer” that service to their customers.

I see which hotel it is now. It’s in a sub-brand of Thistle which is why I couldn’t find it on the main Thistle site (http://www.guoman.com/charing-cross/) To be fair to them they do list both an “international contacts” including numbers in CA and NY and an “international reservations contacts” listing numbers for a whole bunch of countries and a direct dial UK number, so they probably feel they’ve covered it.

However I would agree that the wording on these pages doesn’t make it clear whether you could use these numbers to contact a hotel guest if dialling from abroad, and not including something on a reservation confirmation is poor.

The number I was calling was 448713769012 and that is the number that was on the reservation confirmation and on the Thistle Charing Cross bill. Too bad it didn’t say something like….”in the UK dial….”, “…outside the UK dial…”.

Anyway, thank you for your comments. I’ve learned a lesson from this. I just wish everyone else would not have to learn it the hard way, too.

The reason for this is that within the UK you will pay only local call rates to contact the hotel from anywhere within the country. However the downside is that these non-geographic numbers are not included within call packages from home phones, mobile (cell) phones, VOIP packages etc even for a UK user never mind a international callers. You are correct, your phone company should alert you to this when placing a call. Whether this is an issue for the hotel?? They would argue they are giving their UK customers a better service by making it cheaper for them to call.

If you (or for anyone else for that matter!) are placing a call to a UK number that begins +44 (0)870 or +44 (0)871 check out http://www.saynoto0870.com/search.php

Then, for example, searching for Thistle Hotel lists all the hotels and gives the geographic number that the 0871 number is mapped to (does that make sense?) so 0870 3339121 (the number called? I think you may have been at what the Thistle group call Thistle Westminster rather than Charing Cross) = +44 (0) 207 8341821

This second number would be included within your call plan.

It’s an imperfect science because the website relies on people submitting updates etc, but may be worth checking to save $$

I am not sure why a phone company would allow companies to charge you extra without notifying you. I am also not sure why they would collect such charges. What’s in it for them? Oh wait, I am sure another rip off to their customer.

The hotel policy is too ridiculous to comment on.

Right now it appears the calls were made from Mrs. Vella’s home phone to her husband’s hotel room phone. I will wait to see if Christopher posts a follow up on the hotel’s side of this story. This fee would be appalling to me.