As a frequent flyer I get to stay at many hotels. In my recent travel to Europe, these were the citizenM in Amsterdam Airport and another hotel in Germany.

I highly recommend citizenM. It is an extraordinarily innovative hotel with reasonable prices. It has been designed for the frequent traveler, with plenty of gadgets.
However, take my recommendation ’with a grain of salt’. it is so stylish and hi- techy, it is definitely inappropriate in some circumstance; for example  if  you plan to share the room be aware that  the bathroom is located squarely in the middle of the room, with semi-transparent walls. In short, ‘caveat emptor’ – read the reviews .before you book. 

A common issue plaguing frequent travelers like myself are phone calls prices abroad, both roaming and hotel phones. The latter in particular, are known traps for the unwary. And yet, in my room at the citizenM I saw a note saying something like: “do not hesitate to use the room’s phone, the prices are very low”. Naturally, this got me intrigued and so I called the reception and asked how much it would cost me to call a cellular number outside Europe. The answer was that they cannot tell me exactly, but that it should not worry me since they use IP telephony and so the prices are really low. Of course, everybody knows what to do when a service provider is unwilling to quote the exact tariff… But the hotel was really nice, the staff was really friendly and so I decided to be adventurous and make few calls from the room’s phone.

At this stage, you should say “Poor Gadi. He should have known better”.

I made 3 calls; one to a cellular; two to fixed lines. I spoke briefly, for no more than 5 minutes. The voice quality was perfect. I was not billed, or presented a detailed bill for the calls during check out. Instead, they charged them directly to my credit card.  My total charge was about 15 US cents. Later I stayed in a more traditional hotel in Germany. They had a clear sign stating that the price per minute to the destinations to which I called from CitizenM was about 7 Euros a minute. Five minutes would have cost me about 35 Euros. Go figure.

There are a lot of debates about the future sources of income for service providers in general, and fixed line providers in particular. The story of these two hotels is a perfect example of the challenges facing the industry.