Traveler, Phone Home

On Friday, I got a message on my cell phone from my mother-in-law who happens to be spending 2.5 months in Greece.

Her message reminded me of a very important tip that I wanted to pass on to you, dear readers.

She needed to contact her pay-as-you-go cell phone company to add minutes to her account. If she didn’t have the minutes added that day, she would have lost use of her phone. Unfortunately, she couldn’t make the call to the phone company from Greece. She suspected it was because the number that she had was a toll-free number. I believe she was exactly right.

When calling from another country to a company based in North America, you can’t call using a toll-free number (800, 888, etc.). When you travel abroad, be sure to have alternate, direct numbers for your bank, credit and debit card companies, insurance companies pay-as-you-go cell phone companies or anyone else you plan to call. Often, these companies will accept collect calls.

Phone booths in London (far more interesting than phone booths in Greece). Photo courtesy of Aaron Logan from Wikipedia.

When I was in India in January, I needed to call my credit card company to make a payment as I did not have access to the internet (which is how I normally make a payment). Instead, I tracked down a roadside phone booth, paid a few rupees for the use of the phone, and called my credit card company collect. While I did incur a charge for paying by phone, at least I didn’t have to pay a late fee.

Happy Travels!

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