booman32

Anyone out there heard about a service that lets you bypass a hotel's telephone charges for Internet access? Some hotels allow free 800 calls, but after 10-15 minutes, start charging 10-20 cents a minute. I don't want to hang up and redial every ten minutes. Local calls also aren't free where I'm staying.

The service I heard about over a year ago works this way: You call an 800 number, enter your phone number in your hotel room, then they call you back, and conference you in to your ISP. I'm traveling in a little over a week, and will need to dial in every night for a couple hours. Any ideas on how I can avoid these charges??

Jeffbx

Why not just look for a hotel that has internet access included? A lot of them do that now...

booman32

I wish I could - I'm going to a large conference with a hotel block. The hotel I was able to get into has these calling charges. Any outbound call carries a charge. Bastards.

Jeffbx

Ooooh - that's too bad. Does your ISP have a 1-800 number? Although it's usually expensive to use that, it may be cheaper than the hotel's charges.

Another thing you can do is charge the call to your calling card. It takes a minute to enter all 273 numbers (OK, maybe I exaggerate) into your dialing profile, but it works just fine. Just make sure you check the phone rates at the hotel - I've also been to hotels that will start to charge you after x number of minutes, even on a toll-free call.

Phone rates at hotels are out of hand - I've had $250 phone bills for 4 night stays in some hotels, and I don't call out that much! Good thing it was for business & I didn't have to pay.