Travel Guides

The cheapest and best ways to make phone calls abroad

By Dominic Welling

dominicwelling@consumerchoices.co.uk

Our top tips on how to make the most of your mobile phone when you’re on holiday.

Most people go on holiday to escape it all and relish the thought of leaving their phone behind, but for others– staying in touch while abroad is crucial.

If you want to make calls when you’re abroad, it’s best to plan how you will do this in advance because the costs can mount up.

If you want to make a phone call abroad, you have several options:

• Use your mobile phone
• Use a hotel phone –convenient but can be quite expensive
• Buy a phone card locally – Ensure that it can be used to make international calls, and use it at a pay phone.
• Use a call service like Alpha Telecom – Opening an account with Alpha Telecom: http://www.alphatelecom.com/ allows you to make cost effective calls from more than 50 destinations worldwide. The service is prepaid, so you can load up your account when you register and stay in control of how much you spend.
• Use the internet – If you have internet access abroad, you can keep in touch by using a Voice over IP (VoIP) program like Skype, which allows you to talk to anyone on the Skype network PC to PC for free, or to a landline for a charge.

Check your phone will work

Calling from a mobile while abroad can be expensive, and even receiving calls can cost you money.

To avoid any nasty surprises, it’s a good idea to find out exactly how much your provider charges for using your mobile in the country or countries you are travelling to, as well as checking that your phone will actually work abroad.

Beware big differences between EU member states in Europe and non-EU member states, such as Switzerland and Turkey. Calls to EU member countries tend to be priced much lower.

Some mobile operators charge flat rates for calls and texts to the UK no matter which foreign network you use; but others charge variable rates depending on the network, so check before you travel.

If you find out there is a cheaper network to use, you can manually select it when you arrive at your destination.

Costs

Standard prices vary - albeit very slightly - depending on the different networks and the type of contract.

For example if you are on a pay monthly tariff with O2 and call the UK from Western Europe it will cost 35p per min. It will cost 14p per min to receive a call and 10p to send a text message.

In Eastern Europe calls to the UK cost £1.37 per min and it costs 85p to receive a call. Texts cost 30p.

If you are in the USA or Canada it will cost £1.37 per minute to call home, £1.03 to receive a call and 25p a text.

Charges do vary depending on networks however, so make sure you check your individual network provider’s website to find out how much you should expect to pay before you travel.

Deals

Most providers offer special roaming deals that will make calling abroad cheaper, however it’s essential to weigh-up the costs, taking into account how much the deal will cost you and how much it will save.

For example, opting in to Vodafone Passport means you'll pay your standard home rate to call the UK from over 35 European countries - and from Australia and New Zealand.

Whenever you make a call back to the UK, or within the country you're visiting, there's a 75p connection charge. Then you'll pay your home rate for the time you spend on the call. You can even use your inclusive minutes.

When you receive a call, you'll pay the 75p connection charge and then you can talk for up to 60 minutes free of charge. After that you'll pay 20p a minute.

Sending a text to the UK costs 11p, but you can't use your inclusive texts abroad.

SIMS

Another option is to use a different SIM in your handset when you are abroad. To do this you must make sure that your phone is “unlocked” ie it is compatible with other networks.

Bear in mind that people will need to call you on a different number so make sure you let your friends and family know your temporary number and save all your contact details in the phone’s memory, not on your UK SIM.

You have two options for alternative SIMs:

1. Global SIM

This is the easier option as you only need one global SIM to make discounted calls from destinations worldwide. A special multicountry SIM will cost you around £15-£35 and can normally be topped up online. Global SIMs are available from many websites including; GeoSim: www.globalsimcard.co.uk, and World SIM: www.worldsim.com.

2. Local SIM

Getting a specific SIM for the country you are travelling to is usually the cheaper route for a single holiday. You can buy specific foreign SIM cards online - for example at 0044: www.0044.co.uk - at airport shops or at your destination.

With both types of SIM card it’s often free to receive calls in Europe and other selected countries but you should warn people calling you that it may cost them extra.

If you are using a local SIM, when people call you they are effectively calling that country, and if you are using a global SIM, regardless of where you are, they are calling the SIM company’s country. For example, Sim4Travel is based in Liechtenstein.

These calls can be cheap if they use an instant access cheap calls provider like Alpha Telecom, but it’s worth checking what they will be charged per call.

Voicemail

Be warned, when you’re abroad, you will be charged for receiving voicemails even if you don’t listen to them.

Most networks will charge the overseas rate for receiving the call - up to £1 per minute - whether your phone is on or off, plus you will have to pay another charge to listen to it.

You can ask your network to turn your voicemail service off which would be the cheapest option, but if you can’t manage without voicemail then re-record your voicemail message asking others only to leave essential messages and to keep them short.

Alternatively, keep your phone on as it’s cheaper to answer a call and be brief, than pay double to receive and retrieve a voicemail later.

Internet

Another thing to be wary of is using mobile internet on your phone when you’re abroad - it is likely to cost a fortune.

Unless you are on the 3 network and use their “sister networks” then you are likely to be charged a lot more to access the internet overseas than you would in the UK.

In short, unless it is absolutely essential, avoid using mobile internet abroad and making sure everything web-related on your phone is disabled before you get to the airport.

There are plenty of other ways to access the internet abroad, read our guide on how to get free wi-fi on holiday.

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