Gite telephone

[Gail Smith]

We have recently applied to have our gite 'star' rated and by return of post were sent a schedule of what we need to have to attain different star ratings.

Most of the items in the schedule are easy to comply with, but the one which is really stumping us is the one where we need to supply a telephone within the building and we must be able to to 'bill' the renters for calls made before they leave. 

Has anyone else come across this and if so how did you supply a phone line? 

Gail

[Miki]

[quote]We have recently applied to have our gite 'star' rated and by return of post were sent a schedule of what we need to have to attain different star ratings. Most of the items in the schedule are easy ...[/quote]

Apart from the obvious and getting France Telecom to install a line to the gite, I am not sure what you meant by how ?

As far as billing, you can simply open an online "account" with FT which is simple enough to do, you can then go to your account for that particular line, then to the "phone usage" part (forgot the actual name for the moment, sorry) and print out the bill for the period your guests are in residence.

[Ianhaycox]

My original understanding is that GdF required a payphone on site, however the rental costs and the fact that most people have a mobile makes them an expensive requirement.

It looks like the requirement has been 'relaxed' just requiring a phone. If you like on site and have your own phone then this should satisy the requirement. Let a guest use it with permission and charge them nothing or a nominal euro.

In the last three years we've only had guests make two phone calls and not bothered to charge them. For resturant bookings etc. one of us usually phones on the guests behalf.

[Gail Smith]

To get more than a 2 star rating with the local tourist office in Perigueux the gite must have its own phone within the building.  It must be separately billable.  I don't fancy my chances of sending bills on to people after they have left and expecting them to pay up!  Can you get bills daily on the France Telecom site?  That might be a way forward.

I agree that most people have mobiles and we would obviously have no problem with allowing guests to use our phone as we have Tele2 so they are not too expensive.   It seems a shame that in every area we can attain 3 or 4 stars apart from having a phone in the gite.

Gail

[CatherineS2]

Yes, you can get your bills immediately on the France telecom website -  login to the "Espace Client", then "Ma Consommation", then you enter the From/To dates you require and you can get an itemised bill which you can print out.

I'm not too sure how up to the minute it is, but I just did a search on 19/05/2005 to 20/05/2005 and got the following results:

La consommation globale de votre ligne 0232890558
entre le jeudi 19/05/2005 à 00h00
et le vendredi 20/05/2005 à 22h17 représente...

so it appears to be up to about 20 minutes ago.

We tell our guests that they can have unlimited use of the phone and that we will deduct the cost from their security deposit at the end of their stay (we even tell them that it is cheaper for them to use our phone than it is to use their mobiles), and yet very few people do actually use it! And those that did only used a couple of Euros worth so we did not bother to charge them.

Hope this helps.

 

[Gail Smith]

Thanks so  much for your reply it was a great help.  We are now happy to be able to provide a phone and bill guests before they leave or as you state deduct the costs from their security deposit.

Thanks

Gail