How to cut the cost of holiday calls

Thursday, Jul 23,2009, 9:44:37 AM Click:

What you need to know

Make sure phones have overseas roaming for calls switched on. Overseas calls are not included in any monthly bundle of texts and calling minutes. Any calls you receive or make, any texts you send and internet use are charged.

The EU introduced a cap on overseas roaming charges on July 1, but costs can still vary hugely. Charges in all EU countries will be roughly the same, but outside Europe costs will be higher.

If you use your mobile to call your fellow holidaymakers, you will be charged an overseas fee for making the call and they will be charged one for receiving it.

Receiving a text message is free. So if someone wants to give you regular updates from the UK, get them to text.

You can reduce charges with some networks by buying special overseas add-on packages. You can buy these for just one month and cancel them when you get home.

O2, T-Mobile and Vodafone offer them. O2's costs £2.99 a month, but is free if you have a tariff with 600 minutes or more a month. T-Mobile's International Option is £2.50 a month, while Vodafone's Passport is free to sign up to but every call has a 75p connection charge.

Calling costs

In Spain (and most EU countries) Vodafone customers with its add-on Passport service pay nothing to receive calls from the UK, but those without it pay 19p a minute -the same as customers with T-Mobile and Virgin. 3 is cheapest at 15p a minute.

Vodafone Passport customers will pay 75p to be connected to the UK when they make a call, but after that pay the standard UK rate for whatever tariff they are on. Other

Vodafone customers pay 38p a minute. The highest rate is 43p a minute with T-Mobile and the cheapest 34p a minute with 3.

If you're travelling to the U.S., receiving a call costs from 39p a minute with O2, but only if you have its International Travellers Service add-on. Without this, O2 charges £1.03 a minute. T-Mobile charges 50p a minute with its International Option tariff, or 55p a minute without it - the cheapest.

To call from the US, T-Mobile is the runaway cheapest, charging 55p a minute. After this is O2 at 81p a minute with its add-on package, with 3 at £1.40 a minute the dearest.