Check out rate before lifting hotel phone

Returning to an anonymous hotel room after a tough day's work away from home, your instinct may be to ring a spouse, friend or relation, and chat for long enough to take your mind off the day's slog.

The last thing you think of, if you only occasionally stay away from home overnight, is the rate per unit that the hotel charges for the phone call. But unless your company is paying the bills, it may be wise to check before lifting the receiver.

Making a call from a telephone in a hotel room can cost anything between twice and four times more per unit than it normally costs from a private landline. Hotel rates are also significantly higher than public coin-box charges.

However, on business-related calls resorting to a coin-box simply isn't an option. Chatting intimately to your loved one or family in the lobby of a hotel, while feeding the phone with 10p pieces, isn't the most appealing of prospects either. So often, we simply lift the phone in the hotel room and live to regret it when the bill has to be paid.

The situation is not helped by the failure of many hotels prominently to advertise their charges. Mr John Power, chief executive of the Irish Hotels Federation, says hotels are under no obligation to bring charges to their customers' attention but "good marketing practice and customer care make it a good idea".

He says telephone fees are "generally included in room information. In any hotel I've stayed in I've always been able to find the rates very easily in my room". He feels the charges imposed by Irish hotels are "a fair reflection of the cost of providing the service".

"The cost of installing a telephone system in a hotel and the sophisticated technology involved is very high. There are costs associated with providing an operator, taking messages and having a computerised billing system. In that light, the costs compare very favourably with hotels internationally."

Mr Power admits that he has on occasion been surprised by the telephone bill he received at the end of hotel stays abroad. "I was in Germany recently and would have been delighted to have paid the Irish rates. But even high hotel rates abroad are not necessarily poor value, because the cost of using a mobile phone when you're away from home is so high. "When it comes to deciding whether you should phone from a hotel room you have to weigh up how important the call is and whether it's appropriate to make it on a public phone or a mobile. Essentially you're being charged for the provision of the service, and its convenience. Guests are not being ripped off. They're aware of what's being charged." However, Mr Dermot Jewell, the chief executive of the Consumers' Association of Ireland, is not convinced.

"I know the first principle of any business is to generate a profit, but that's not an excuse for overcharging. The rates imposed by some hotels for the use of the phones in their rooms is excessive."

He feels that there is very little opportunity for customers to protect themselves from being overcharged in hotels other than to make themselves fully aware of the charges before signing in. "The rates should be brought to the attention of the customer when they're signing in or there should at least be a notice directing the customer to a booklet where the charges are listed.

"A lot of people decline to make calls from the telephones in their rooms and just use it to receive calls. The whole area is one that should be regulated and there should be a standard charge for the use of a phone in a hotel."

Telecom Eireann offers one potential solution in the form of its Chargecard. Cardholders can dial free of charge from any digital phone by entering a code and a PIN number. The cost they incur in the course of these calls will be added to their own domestic bills. A £1 service charge (exclusive of VAT) is added for international calls.

Another solution, if you have to make international calls from your hotel room, is to use a callcard such as those provided by Swiftcall and TORC Telecom. You phone an 1800 number, enter a PIN number, and then dial the international number. Your time is up when the value of the card is exhausted. However, it may not be a bad idea to check out if dialling a freephone number incurs a hefty charge too.