Elite travellers have never obviously stayed at Ian Schrager hotels.

The one at SFO where I stayed at when it first opened, charges local phone calls at $1 a minute!!! Toll free or not !

The $1 charge for toll-free calls is acceptable. Most hotels in USA charge that. Some charge more. The ones in UK are the extortionists where they , like Kiwi said, charges per "unit" (how they justify this is anyone's guess).

I was staying at the Scandic Hotel in CPH last month, and I had to make an emergency call on the house phone to Germany. More of a - please call me back at this number - kind of call. Well, my friend was slow in writing down the number, and kept asking me to repeat the question... anyway.. the call ended up being over a minute. I was expecting it to be at least in the region of 5 Pounds. That would be the case for UK..

But when I checked out, the call was less than the equivalent of 1 Pound! Amazing..