Cost of telephone call from New york hotel

[Brian Deakin]

I have recently returned from a holiday in New York .I stayed at the Westin hotel Times square During my stay I made a telephone call from the room land line to a mobile in shrewsbury

SHREWSBURY, MA 01545

a distance of 180 miles away I was charged for this call which lasted about 5 minutes $19.65

The cost of actually sending the parcel by overnight carrier was $16.65 the weight of the parcel was 4 pounds

Can anyone please tell me the actual cost a resident in the USA would make for such a call

regards Brian

[Peter Kelly]

Not sure as most people use mobile phones now and the contracts are different but I'm pretty certain there aren't any calling plans where the rate is almost $4 per minute.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Brian,

For decades, most hotels contract with different long distance carriers and they charge a horrendous amount for telephone calls.

In the '70s when in a 13 week company school, we stayed in a hotel the entire time. New hires were issued telephone credit cards to use instead of paying the hotels inflated rates. It's a fairly common business practice and has been for over 40 years.

[David G Baker]

I have unlimited local and long distance for no extra charge.

[Kevin W Johnson]

Yeah, and if the cost per minute isn't displayed in a noticeable manor in the hotel, they shouldn't be allowed to charge that kind of rate.

[Matt Meiser]

I usually see it posted right on the phone.

[Jerome Stanek]

If I know that I will be staying at a hotel I will get a calling card. I have had problems with getting a signal in some areas so the calling card is a cheap alternative.

[Mike Henderson]

Hotels have a problem - people shop for a room on the Internet and they look for the best rates. To pad your bill, the hotel add all kind of fees and other charges (like a "resort fee"). One thing they're doing now is to charge for the use of the telephone, even for local calls. If you have cell service, the best thing is to not use the hotel phone at all.

The funny thing is that expensive hotels charge for WiFi but the middle range hotels do not. WiFi has become a "standard" feature required in mid range hotels, just like a free breakfast. But the expensive hotels get away with charging for WiFi because they figure if you can afford to pay the hotel rate, you'll pay an extra $10 or so a day for WiFi.

Mike

[Moses Yoder]

My mobile phone costs me about 19 cents per minute to use. We have 4 mobiles on this plan, 2 smart phones and 2 dumb ones, and pay about $140 per month for a 900 minute plan, of which we use about 750 minutes per month. So a 5 minute call would have cost me 95 cents. On the other hand, the phone costs the same whether we use it or not so technically the call would have cost me $0.00.