Calls Home to U.S. May Touch Travelers’ Wallets

A tourist from Peekskill, N.Y., called home from Munich, and the $64 phone call was boosted by a 450% surcharge to $352.

A couple on vacation made a $39 call to the United States from Italy and was billed for a $117 surcharge. When they objected to the 300% surcharge, the hotel threatened to call the police. They paid the bill.

A traveler made a five-minute call from Paris to New York and found $95 tacked onto her hotel bill. If she had placed her call from a Paris post office, it would have cost about $18.

These and similar charges imposed on international telephone calls have come as an unpleasant surprise when it comes time for traveling Americans to check out of their hotels.

About 11 million Americans will travel overseas this year and an additional 4.1 million will be going to Mexico, according to the U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration.

AT&T; research indicates that an estimated 63% of those traveling for pleasure and 83% of those traveling for business call home at least once, which means more than 10 million telephone calls are involved.

A spokesman for AT&T; suggested that one way to avoid excessive hotel telephone surcharges while traveling abroad--when the hotel has international dialing--is to dial your party in the U.S. from your room and ask to be called back, giving your hotel telephone number and your room number.

In many countries, you pay only for the actual length of a dialed call, but the surcharge can be tacked onto a call of less than one minute. Because there is no surcharge on the return call, it is usually charged at a lower rate than a call from another country to the United States.

In response to complaints from travelers outraged by the surcharges, AT&T; also has developed Teleplan, under which several hotel groups have agreed to limit the surcharges to “capped” levels, ranging from $2 to $10, regardless of the length of the call, for calls paid at the hotel.