I'm planning on renting a cellphone from Adam Phones, and was just curious if anyone has experience with them.

Their rates seem reasonable (free incoming, and outgoing calls to USA 30p per min), but I saw the CDG horror story on Fodors today (about another company, NOT Adam Phones), which inspired me to check to see what people who've rented from them think.

Thanks.

Jim

bumping.

Thanks.

No experience with Adam Phones but suggest getting an unlocked phone that will work in Europe. You can get them fairly inexpensively.

In the UK, pay-as-you-go plans are quite competative. You can get a mobileworld SIM card for free with £10 of calling credit. They have some of the best rates for US calls 5-7 p/min depending on what time you call. You can get the SIM at carphone warehouse store which are allover theh high streets.
This may actually turn out to be the cheaper option.

I looked into that, but I don't go overseas enough for that to be worth it.

Zooey91, aka Jim -- Did you ultimately use Adam Phones in the UK? What was your experience with them? Unless I hear bad things, I think I will rent from them for my upcoming trip to the UK.

Does anyone else have a UK-based rental firm to recommend? We need three mobile phones, which will be used *only* for calling within the UK, mostly calling each other. So we do *not* care about cheap calling rates to the US.

I've read all the recent posts & understand that buying a phone may be cheaper. However, I don't think that works for us. We don't want to take time & effort to go find a store & make arrangements, and we don't have time left to buy unlocked phones on eBay.

What I am looking for is a service like Rentafon Japan, which I recently used: a firm that will send the phone directly to our London hotel, & let us just drop it in the mail there to return it.

I did use Adam Phones. It's been close to two years so I don't remember the details too clearly, bit I do remember that everything went very smoothly and I had no complaints.

Receiving and returning the phone was very easy: The phone was waiting for me when I checked in to the first UK hotel, and I left the phone with the concierge when I checked out at the end of the trip.

From what I can remember the phone worked well and it came in handy for calling ahead to hotels, restaurants, and family.

Hope this helps.

Great, thanks. I've booked all the phones for our group with Adam Phones, and will report back. I called their US number to ask a question, and their UK guy scheduled a callback to me via email and then called when he said he would -- a good sign!

FYI, current rates:

* Delivery to UK hotel / return charge: $12 each way regardless of number of phones. (Not sure what charge in GBP is.)

* Phone rental (Nokia 6020): 1 GBP/day, no min. number days
* Incoming calls: free
* Outgoing calls to UK landlines OR to other Adam cellphones (& others on same network): 24 p/min
* Outgoing calls to another UK mobile not on same network: 85 p/min
* Outgoing calls to US: 50 p/min

I'm reporting back on my experience with renting from Adam Phones. Summary: extremely good, with one tiny quibble (explained below). I would definitely use them again.

The good:

* Excellent customer service. I always got quick responses by phone or by email to any questions I asked. Delivered 3 phones to my London hotel (for same delivery charge as just 1 phone) on Fri to ensure I had them when I checked in on Sunday . . . and didn't charge me for the Fri & Sat that I wouldn't be using the phones. Picked the phones up from the hotel concierge at end of rental.

* Prices very fair. For three phones, we ultimately paid under $120 for 9 days' service, including all the calls we made (inc. one short one to U.S.), VAT, etc. While we might have done cheaper buying phones, this was the convenient solution for us.

* Great phones. Good reception, easy to use, long-lasting charge.

* Extremely well-itemized final bills, sent to me by snail mail.

The very slight quibble:
* Adam Phones does its final accounting (itemized bill and refund of deposit on credit card) 14 days after the phones are returned. That meant that a good chunk of charge (about $580 or so) sat on my credit card well after I'd returned the phones. (I didn't experience a similar delay when I rented phones in Japan this summer from another firm.)

Overall, an extremely positive experience, and a firm I'd be happy to recommend.

Yes I know that I am an old out of touch traveler, but I have to ask, with a smile, it seems to me you spent over $100 doing what I can do by purchasing a 5 pound phone card.

We used Adams phones about 5 years ago and found the service acceptable. Did what they said they would do and charged what they said they would. A bit expensive, but I read the information and was willing to pay it.

Since then, I borrow my sons tri-ban phone when I go to Europe. I walk into the first cell phone shop I see and buy a chip for my phone. Usually around 10L for the chip and I get 10L credit, so it is a wash. I then estimate how much calling I will do and buy extra minutes on the phone. I have learned that if you buy a phone in UK you cannot add minutes in France unless you have a UK credit card, which I do not. I usually buy around 40L, so that gives me 50L of talk time. That is a lot of talking. Unless there is a dire emergency, this is usually plenty. It would be better to do this in France or wherever, because the Euro is better than the Pound, but we usually land in London, so I buy the chip there.

Alternative: buy an unlocked Europe phone (900/1800 GSM). You can get one, with charger and delivered free, for little more than what Adam charges for shipping: telestial.com

Then get a free SIM from http://www.t-mobilesimgiveaway.co.uk...d=ON-TM-W-Home T-Mobile will deliver them to your hotel.

Rogeruktm: We needed 3 phones rather than 1 phone -- and b/c we are all on Verizon in the US, which is not GSM, we needed to get phones as well as cards.

Robespierre: The free delivery of a SIM card to the hotel would indeed have been appealing, and as I said earlier in the thread, I might have investigated buying an unlocked phone on eBay if I had left myself enough time do do that. I was interested in what you said about Telestial's phones w/delivery being little more than what Adam charges for shipping (which I think totalled $24 for all 3 phones, though would have to look at final bill to see exact price). The cheapest international-capable phone I see on Telestial is the Siemens a70 at $99 each (so, almost $300 for us). Am I misreading??

The cheapest international-capable phone is £20 anywhere in Britain with a cashtill. Or practically anywhere else in Europe. No faffing about: buy the phone, get it out of the box and start phoning

Why anyone would lend a bunch of wideboys a week's wages and worry themselves into a flurry of emails for something that's about as difficult and complicated (and expensive) to buy as an M&S prawn sandwich is beyond me. But doubtless it takes all sorts.

<i>The cheapest international-capable phone I see on Telestial is the Siemens a70 at $99 each (so, almost $300 for us). Am I misreading??</i>

Yes: http://www.telestial.com/promo/packlite.php

Phone
SIM with $5 airtime
Charger
Plug adapter
Free shipping