Low cost international roaming - anyone used Travelfone

[nickjwilliams]

Has anyone bought / used / had any experience of the service offered by Travelfone?

www.travelfone.com - distributed through SavaStore (a Watford Electronics company. Watford Electronics have just been bought by "Globally" but have been around for years). Website for SavaStor / WE is currently being refreshed after takeover the site says.

Travelfone claims to provide free international roaming in virtually any country - well as far as receiving calls is concerned, and also to reduce call costs when phoning from abroad, and all from 1 number. They claim that the cost to call this number is as per any UK mobile number also, and provide an 07624 number.

My thoughts were to divert my T-mobile phone number to the travelfone number when away (so as not to have to provide a different number, and it would cost them no more/less, and the divert costs would be included (as far as my allowance would provide) within my Flex-T call plan as if I had dialled any standard UK mobile number. This thought was also backed up from their FAQ's say that the cost of calling the Travelfone number was as per a UK mobile, and inclusive miunutes could be used. See quote below from their page http://www.travelfone.com/faqs.html

"Does the caller who phones you pay a high tariff for the call?
- Not at all. Because Travelfone customers are given a normal UK mobile number, their callers simply pay the same rate as if they were calling an UK mobile phone. If the caller has cross-network minutes available on their monthly contract, calls to a Travelfone are free."

After speaking with a representative of Travelfone who confirmed the above, but suggested I check with my provider, I decided it best to ring T-Mobile before buying. They said that the 07624 prefix was charged by them at 50p / minute, and not standard UK mobile rates, and that the number was a Manx Telecom number and charged at Zone 2b rates, as such this would not be set against my "monthly allowance" of my Flex-T tariff.

I called Manx telecom who said they provide blocks of numbers to other service providers (of whom I assume Travelfone must be one) and that the charges to call a number would be set by T-Mobile and not Manx or Travelfone. Offcom also confirmed that this was not a standard mobile number rate.

Has anyone here used or heard of this service and what was their experience of using it? Would be nice to know if it works and what the real charges are.

Thanks for any help / guidance, as always!

NickW