I felt like the luckiest guy in Las Vegas a couple weeks ago when I checked into the Tropicana Resort hotel. I’d gotten a cheap rate at a time when most other Strip hotels were charging two or three times as much.

But I soon found a potential trap that could have made my stay a lot more expensive. The front-desk clerk warned me long-distance telephone charges were $14.40 for the first minute, $1 a minute thereafter.

Wow. I had my cell phone, but what if reception was lousy? What if I’d forgotten my power cord? Three brief long-distance calls and my phone bill would have exceeded the cost of the room.

This discovery underscores a problem with hotels. It isn’t just outrageous taxes and fees that drive up the cost of a room; it’s the surcharges and extras, as well. Overnight parking charges. Resort fees. Bottles of water from the minibar that cost $4. The list goes on and on.

The Tropicana turned out to be far from the worst in the surcharge department. At the Trop, like all Strip hotels, self-parking is free. But you won’t find that across the country. If you decide to leave a car parked at the Hilton New York, the cost is as much as I paid for my room in Las Vegas: $40 a night.

And in terms of outrageous phone charges, the Trop doesn’t come close to the Hilton Checkers in downtown Los Angeles. There, guests have to pay a $4.99 flat fee for a long-distance call, up to $10 charges per minute plus a 20% markup on whatever the phone company charges. Whew. A half-hour call could cost as much as $305.

Suddenly, the $229-a-night charge for the room seems cheap by comparison. I called the general manager of the Hilton Checkers for comment, but I didn’t hear back from him.

A leading hotel industry consultant, Mark Woodworth of PKF Consulting, says the industry installed a lot of expensive telecommunications equipment over the years, only to be undercut by guests carrying cell phones. They charge high rates in order to try to recoup some of their investment.

And, of course, there’s more pressure than ever on hotels to keep basic rates low so they can trounce competitors on Internet travel sites. Then they try to add on fees when the guests visit.

Woodworth says not only is he getting used to seeing $10 resort fees tacked on his bill — whether he uses the pool or not — but recently ran into a daily $3 «housekeeping fee» at a Phoenix hotel. «What comes next?» he asks. «A couple bucks for the sheets?»

Nevertheless, travelers can take some steps to save money:

Buy a phone card. Some hotel clerks advised me to pick up a phone card instead of using the room phone. That way, all the long-distance calls show up on the bill as local calls because they are dialed through a toll-free number. Sam’s Club online, for instance, offers a 20-pack of AT&T 100-minute prepaid phone cards for $69.42, which works out to about 3 cents per minute.

Ask about special programs. ByRequest, Wyndham Hotels’ frequent-guest program, includes free local and long-distance calls and free Internet access. The program doesn’t cost anything to join. Guests can sign up when they check in.

Consider flat-rate deals. Marriott offers unlimited local and long-distance calling for $9.95 a day at many of its full-service hotels. Westin has a similar program for $16.

Don’t bring your car. In Boston and New York, the two cities where I found the highest parking rates, a car is more of a hindrance than a help because the taxi and public transportation network is so good.

Besides, if you have a car, you shouldn’t be staying downtown anyway. You can get a hotel room on the outskirts of the city and drive to appointments within a few minutes. And in doing so, you’ll probably save enough on the cost of the hotel to pay for the car.

In Denver, for example, the Marriott City Center Hotel was listed at $199 a night for each of the two nights that I checked for a trip next month. Overnight parking is $23. Meanwhile, Marriott’s TownePlace Suites is about a mile from downtown, the room rate was half as much and the parking is free.

Free. When it comes to hotels, I wish I would see that word more often.

The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) today said the high entry fee proposed in the unified licensing recommendations would favour long-distance and integrated players, putting pure-play telecom like service providers at a disadvantage.

«The high registration charges are an exorbitant entry barrier especially as they need to be amortised over a brief period of 5 years. The authority (Trai) needs to review the high level of registration charges for long-distance services and recommend a suitable reduction in the same, which is in consonance with its own principles and objectives enunciated for unified licensing,» the COAI said in a letter to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).

In its recommendations, the Trai had proposed a Rs 107 crore entry fee for acquiring unified licence.

The cellular association also said both national and international long distance services should not be bundled into one package.

«By bundling the two charges, the authority will be disadvantaging operators who are say, interested only in providing national or international long distance services,» it said.

Under the current regime, the entry fee for national and international long distance services are prescribed at Rs 100 crore and Rs 25 crore, respectively. The Trai had recommended a fixed price of Rs 107 crore for both the services.

The COAI said national and international long distance charges should be fixed on the service area basis.

«An operator offering services in four circles should not pay the same fee as that paid by a service provider operating in 16 circles,» TV Ramachandran, director-general, COAI said.

LA JOLLA, Calif. (Business Wire) Aug. 10, 2004 -- Global Vision Holdings, Inc., (Pink Sheets:GVHL), a developer and worldwide wholesale marketer of a new generation of prepaid financial service products, today announced the launch of «Global Discounted Healthcare» — another prepaid product for debit cardholders and consumers at large. GVHL is the master distributor of the plan, having entered into an agreement with Infinity Benefits U. S., LLC, of Florida, who will administer the program.

Under the terms of the agreement, GVHL will function as the program’s mass-distribution marketer and set up major channel distributors. Global Discounted Healthcare distributors will earn a percentage of the prepaid monthly membership fees as commissions. The targeted distributors are the current credit and debit/stored value card distributors and high traffic volume Web site operators already in place in the industry. Infinity Benefits U. S. will assemble and administer the plan from various healthcare areas, and provide the reporting, business and customer support infrastructures.

The Global Discounted Healthcare plan is not a healthcare insurance policy; rather, it is a low cost healthcare membership plan. A member can use the plan to supplement his/her existing healthcare insurance policy or to improve his/her situation of no healthcare protection at all.

The Global Discounted Healthcare plan will be sold as a 3-Pack, 5-pack or 7-Pack plan. A consumer can purchase a 3-Pack plan for $9.95 a month and enjoy up to 40 percent savings on pharmaceutical, dental and vision care from thousands of participating drug stores, merchants and service providers nationwide. Paying $5.00 more for a 5-Pack, the consumer can add hearing and chiropractic care and save up to 40% from thousands of additional providers. The 7-Pack plan, retailing at $20.95, adds physician and hospital benefits to the plan.

A bankcard holder can join the Global Discounted Healthcare plan by signing up on the Web site of his bankcard provider, if the provider is a Global Discounted Healthcare plan distributor. A consumer can also sign up for the program on the Web site of any of the Global Discounted Healthcare plan distributors. Members prepay the service each month with bank debit cards, credit cards or electronic checks.

«The Global Discounted Healthcare program is one of the adjunct products on our prepaid product line, and our strategy is to have our existing distributors on all other prepaid products cross-sell this new product as an added benefit to current members,» said Global Vision’s CEO Jack Chang. «With healthcare costs skyrocketing, particularly in the United States, this is a great opportunity for our distributors to make recurring commission revenues and truly help people at the same time.»

GVHL is in the prepaid/stored-value debit product marketing business. Prepaid debit cards are in great demand by businesses and individuals that do not qualify for bank accounts or credit cards throughout the world. The market for prepaid debit cards is just in its infancy domestically and virtually untapped outside the United States.

Other planned GVHL debit card benefits and features for cardholders and distributors will include: low-cost life insurance, debit cards with long distance calling features, and cardholder purchase rewards programs.

By Juliana Gittler, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Wednesday, July 14, 2004

IWAKUNI MARINE CORPS AIR STATION, Japan — Under a restricted telephone-calling plan, some station Marines living in barracks pay at least 13 cents a minute to call home using a calling card.

Others, including married Marines, pay half that amount through an unrestricted calling plan that lets them call long distance from their home phones.

The restricted plan keeps long-distance bills in check, especially for junior servicemembers with limited incomes. The base is responsible for any unpaid bills.

But some Marines say the limitation isn’t fair.

Like many Pacific bases, Iwakuni offers residents three calling plans: unrestricted calling for local or long distance, which features 6-yen-a-minute calls to the United States; restricted on-base DSN-only calls; and a third option that allows on-base calls and toll-free calls in Japan, but no long distance. Callers with this plan must purchase calling cards, which are more expensive per minute to the States.

All three plans allow dial-up Internet connections and the use of prepaid military phone cards that require only a DSN line.

Most servicemembers at Iwakuni can pick their plans. But for single Marines who are sergeants and below in Headquarters and Headquarters Squadron, command officials decide for them. Most are limited to the restricted, more expensive plan.

The reason is simple, said Capt. Stewart Upton, base spokesman.

Unrestricted calling plans put some Marines at financial risk. In one case, a young Marine ran up more than $1,400 in phone charges in a month, officials said.

„A phone with unrestricted long-distance access in the barracks environment is much like leaving a loaded gun unattended,“ base officials said in a written statement. „It is very high-risk.“

The rule went into effect in 2000. At the time, most delinquent bills came from the barracks, said Chief Warrant Officer Chad LaSuer, telephone officer for the S-6 communications department.

In a written statement, officials said commanders created the rule „based upon a comprehensive review, but focused on two primary factors: (1) past payment performance of Marines and sailors that resided in the barracks and (2) the damage that high unpaid bills did to the individual Marines.“

Marine Wing Support Squadron 171 also requires Marines to have approval from their command before getting a phone but, the unit lets Marines decide with some counseling, Upton said.

Married Marines and those from other commands do not need command permission to get phone service.

„If you’re from any other unit, you just show up and fill out an application and show your ID,“ La- Suer said.

He said the two commands, not the phone office, established the rule. „I don’t make any restrictions on anybody,“ he said.

Some Marines complain the arrangement isn’t completely fair. In a June 11 editorial in the base newspaper, The Torii Teller, Lance Cpl. Ruben D. Calderon complained that he is paying for the mistakes of previous Marines and asked base leaders to create a prepaid calling option that provides the same low-cost long-distance rates for restricted callers.

Meanwhile, the number of Marines with restricted plans has been increasing in the past year, LaSuer said.

„Most of the letters have been [restricted] lately,“ he said.

But base officials say the policy is having the desired effect. Only a small portion of delinquent bills are now from H&HS.

At least 100 bills are late each month, LaSuer said, and about half are accounts in family housing. Still, in family housing one person is responsible for the bill, whereas in a barracks roommates can blame each other for charges.

In response to Calderon’s editorial, LaSuer wrote a letter to the editor clarifying the rules on calling plans and reminding Marines that the military phone service is unique.

The phone office covers unpaid bills, and when bills are late, the office must track down the individual’s command.

„It’s an administrative burden on us because we have to notify the command,“ LaSuer said.