Holiday Calling Tips

Phone bills can increase during the holiday season. Infrequent long-distance users could use some helpful advice. Here are 10 tips to help consumers reduce household budgets by shaving dollars off phone bills:

Three tips for calling from the road:

1. Never dial zero to use a calling card. Instead, dial the toll-free access number for your card. Unlike the old days when dialing zero connected you to one network (AT&T), there are now many long distance companies. If a phone is setup to route calls via AT&T, WorldCom or Sprint, dialing zero to use other companies calling cards will cost you a $4.99 initial fee. The rate-per-minute will be different as well.

2. When making calls from hotels or relatives' homes consider using your mobile phone. Do you have a cell phone that does not charge roaming fees? If there are minutes remaining on a "national" monthly cellular plan, making calls with the cell phone won't cost you (or your relatives) anything more than you're already paying each month.

3. If you don't have a calling card or good cellular plan, 10-10 "dial-around" plans can come in handy for calls from relatives' homes. Just because a relative has an expensive long distance plan (millions of people pay as much as 30 cents a minute for state-to-state calls) is no reason to stick them with a high bill. And if you plan to reimburse them for your calls, the best 10-10 plans can reduce that rate to a nickel or less a minute. Another 10-10 number benefit is billing itemized separately with the local phone bill. Simply make sure you're using a 10-10 number that no one else dials from that phone. Then when their next bill comes, you can reimburse the amount due for that particular plan. No need to search for phone calls or break out the calculator.

Three tips for saving on U.S. calls:

4. Don't confuse "nights and weekends" special rates with "evenings" discounts. Some plans offer lower rates after 7 pm every day, charging regular daytime rates before that hour on weekends.

5. Watch out for Universal Service Fund (USF) charges. Users who only make instate calls will not see any federal USF charges added to their bill. However, phone companies typically add between 9 and 10 percent to the cost of interstate and international calls to reimburse funds they must pay the federal government. If you find your usage shifting to more out-of-state calls, consider a plan with a flat monthly USF fee. As an example, some plans add a flat monthly fee between $1.12 and $1.44. This is good news to people with long distance usage over $15, but bad news for low volume users.

6. Always ask if the in-state long distance rate for your plan is different than the state-to-state rate. A common regret is finding that long distance calls within your state cost more than calls to other states. Some plans that provide evening or weekend discounts off state-to-state rates don't do the same for in-state calls. If this is the case with your plan, start shopping around for another.

Four tips for making international calls:

7. Never assume that a plan with low rates for U.S. calls has good rates for international calls. You could get charged several dollars per minute unless you sign up for an international calling plan.

8. If you are just making one or two short international calls during the holidays, it may not be worth a $3 or $4 calling plan fee. Often the best deals with no monthly fees or commitments come from the 10-10 plans. Rates to popular call destinations such as Germany and the United Kingdom can be less than 10 cents per minute.

9. A recent U.S. telecommunications trend is callers paying higher rates to place international calls to mobile devices (wireless phones, pagers, military devices). This policy is confusing to Americans who are used to seeing a person accepting incoming calls on a mobile phone paying for those calls. In many other countries the person calling to a mobile phone or pager pays a higher rate to do so. Phone companies are increasingly passing these higher costs on to consumers.

10. This final tip is more about saving you frustration than money. While most international calls require dialing "011" before the phone number, that is not necessary for calling Canada or Caribbean countries. For those destinations, simply dial 1 plus area code and phone number. Another tricky thing about international phone numbers is area codes that start with "0." In some countries like England calls within the country may require dialing "0" as the first digit of some area codes. When calling from the U.S. you will need to drop the initial "0" in area codes for the call to go through.

Courtesy of the consumer advocacy site 10-10PhoneRates.com. The site often provides notice of rate increases or decreases the day they take effect, and occasionally in advance, whenever phone companies announce plans early. 10-10PhoneRates.com does not sell any phone services or take commissions from phone companies.

Do you have a time or money saving idea that wasn't included in this article? Please send it to tips@stretcher.com. We get the best ideas from our readers!

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