Phoning home can be done cheaply or cost a bundle

By Bruce Mohl, Globe Staff, 02/10/02

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Leisure travelers who want to get away but stay in touch have a variety of methods to choose from, everything from relatively cheap prepaid calling cards to $1,500 satellite telephones.

The choice depends on your budget and just how connected you want to be, whether it's the occasional call home or the ability to dial someone from a mountaintop in the middle of nowhere.

Calling home from within the United States is fairly simple. Most people already have either a wireless phone with long distance minutes or a calling card tied to their home line. If you have neither and are cheap like me, get a prepaid calling card. They're easy to use and can bypass most hotel surcharges.

Sensible travelers say the best deals for prepaid cards are at warehouse stores like Sam's Club, BJ's Wholesale Club, or Costco. Phillip Wallas and Ronald Cahill buy their cards at Costco. A $20 card from MCI comes with 575 minutes, which works out to 3.5 cents a minute on domestic calls. There's a 24-cent-per-call surcharge for payphone calls.

Calling home from abroad tends to be more expensive and more complicated. It seems everyone has a horror story, like the reader who phoned home from a Sicilian hotel last year and was charged $13 for a short call.

Marc-David Seidel, cofounder of ABTolls.com, a consumer group that analyzes calling options, recommends getting a billable calling card (one that bills you after the calls are made) with an acceptable rate from the country you are visiting. Use it to make your calls, he says, or use it as a backup to a prepaid card - also purchased in the country you are visiting.

Seidel says prepaid cards sold abroad are often more reliable than their less-regulated US counterparts. "We simply have heard too many complaints about their reliability," he says of the US cards. "Complaints range from access numbers that don't work overseas to unexpectedly high charges in terms of minutes expiring faster than originally understood."

His Web site provides information on so-called callback services, which allow users to relay their international calls through the United States at US international rates. (Rates from the United Kingdom with American International Telephone, one company listed on ABTolls.com, were 12 cents a minute prepaid and 16 cents postpaid.) But Seidel recommends caution, since callback services take more effort to arrange and require the user to remain in a fixed location to use them.

Among billable cards, Ann Dylis recommends MCI's anytime calling with international weekends, which she used on a trip to Denmark and the Netherlands last summer. "I did tons of research and this was definitely the best deal from the major carriers linked to your home account," she says.

The cost is an extra $3.95 a month, but per-minute rates are fairly low and service is offered from practically every country. Calls to the United States from Britain are 10 cents a minute weekdays and 9 cents weekends.

Acculinq, one of the billable cards listed on ABTolls.com, offers slightly higher per-minute rates and serves only about 25 countries, but it doesn't have to be linked to a home line and there are no monthly fees. Calls are 19.9 cents a minute from the United Kingdom. Acculinq bills in six-second increments and the clock starts ticking as soon as you dial the toll-free access number.

Several readers say they have had excellent success with prepaid cards sold in foreign countries. Richard Grant of Ipswich, for example, was bullish about cards he used in Britain from British Telecom. But a check with the company found its BT Phonecard Plus charging 83 cents a minute to call the United States. The MCI card sold by Costco charges 40 cents.

Those looking to maintain a closer connection to home might consider bringing along a wireless phone, or if money is no object, a satellite phone. They can be handy in emergencies and friends can call you and be charged as if you're still in the country.

Voicestream rents its "world phones" for $29 a week, or $49 a month. (Customers with triband or dual-band phones merely have to sign up free of charge for world-class service). Rates from the United Kingdom run 99 cents a minute and 69 cents from Canada. Service is available in about 80 countries.

Next to e-mail ("no need to figure out time differences"), Margaret V. Kelley of Edgartown likes bringing a wireless phone on vacation. "But be careful," she says. "We were one day over a month returning the phone and were charged for an extra month."

More surcharges

The federal government on Feb. 1 added a new security charge to all domestic air tickets, but some foreign carriers have added new charges of their own.

Marie Masse of Topsfield was skeptical of a $25 "airline security/insurance surcharge" added at the last minute to her recent flight to Morocco. Her tour operator, Overseas Adventure Travel of Cambridge, says the fee was added by Royal Air Maroc after Sept. 11. Most US airlines already had international security surcharges in place before Sept. 11.

But Overseas Adventure says the Royal Air Maroc charge is only $5 per flight leg, meaning Masse and her husband should have been charged $15, not $25. Refunds should be coming.