Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Free cell phone rental in Europe

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Free cell phone rental in Europe

Some of you may be interested in this information, which I found in 6/15 edition of Frommer's Newsletter www.frommers.com Travelcell www.travelcell.com is allowing free rental of their cell phones in order to introduce people to the service Phone 1 877 235 5746 I wanted a phone for my week-long trip to France in June, so I checked it out. Here are the details: Phone rental no charge (usually $24.95 per week) The calls are charged as follows--outgoing calls are $1.49/min local or long distance, with no additional ld charges; incoming calls are $.79/per minute. Your phone number will be a UK-based number, so callers from home will incur ld charges (use a 10-10 dial around and it's 10 cents or less) There is a $7.50 each way shipping charge for the phone Optional insurance is available for $.99/per day you are in Europe The phone and number are sent about 4 days before departure, and will be working when you step off the plane the phone is a Nokia 6210 While this may not be the best deal for someone who will be calling out a lot, certainly for me the $15 I will pay to have it shipped is better than spending $60-$100 to buy a phone while there. I like the idea of my family being able to reach me if there is a need. Hope this is useful for someone. Barb

Barb, Order it early! I am looking at a travel cell phone in my living room for my trip on Saturday. Unfortunatly, it should have been sent to someone named Michael who is going to Israel and I am going to Italy. They are closed right now so I am assuming that there is NO way they will get a correct phone to me in time. The price was right, but I am now going to have to buy a phone in Italy.

UPDATE! My recommendation is to stay FAR AWAY from these people. I called again this morning on my cell phone mix up. The office is closed Friday and Satuday for reasons no one seems to know. The call service can't do anything. They said there is a technical number on your phone info for problems. Well, technically they are correct, but the technical number is in ISREAL! So now both myself and this Michael who was suppose to get the phone I have are SOL> Personally I am going to send Frommers a note telling them that I can't believe they associate with a company with this little customer service.

Update #2. My phone did indeed arrive today! It is a UK based phone which I knew, but since I only plan to use it if the car dies or in case of major catastrophe it will do. Of course, poor Michael is still out of luck!@

Just one thing: Incoming calls are free in Europe. If they charge you for them, it's a rip off.

Carman: This is an on going discussion on this board. When you rent a phone, the rental rates are almost secondary. You pay through the nose to make calls and even more through the nose to receive calls since, as you point out, on a European plan the receiving of calls is free. I still think it is best, especially if you are going to be in one country for at least a week, to buy an inexpensive phone with a pre paid plan in the country you are in. In London, there are many phone shops that sell an inexpensive phone for around £49 including a prepaid plan. The prepaid plan allows you to make inexpensive calls within the UK and depending on the plan pretty inexpensive plans to other countries. If the plan you have doesn't have the inexpensive calls to other countries, you buy a phone card at the many many shops that sell them with a local access number and use the phone card. I too believe being asked to pay $1 or $1.50 to make a call and $1 a minute to receive a calls is a rip off.....