Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and you then qualify for your refund. Each retailer is allowed to make its own arrange-
ments for processing the refund—some require you to return the countersigned docu-
ments to them or an agent, others have an agreement in place with a booth at the
airport. Details are posted online at www.hmrc.gov.uk/vat/sectors/consumers/overseas-
visitors.htm .
Telephones To make a call within the U.K. , the area codes found throughout this
book all begin with “0”; you drop the “0” if you're calling from outside Britain, but you
need to dial it along with the rest of the code if you're calling domestically. For calls
within the same city or town, the local number is all you need, minus the area code. Dial
just the 6- to 8-digit number. Calling from a cellphone, you need to dial the full number
including area code, no matter where you're calling from .
Phonecards are often the most economical method for visitors from overseas to make
both international and national calls. They are available in several values, and are reusable
until the total value has expired. Cards can be purchased from newsstands and small
retailers nationwide, and offer call rates of a few pence per minute to English-speaking
countries like Australia and the United States. Follow the instructions on the card to make
a call from a public payphone. Most payphones now also take credit cards, but if your
card doesn't have Chip and PIN technology embedded (see “Money & Costs,” below), you
may encounter problems.
For advice on using your cellphone in England and Wales, see “Mobile Phones,” earlier
in this section. If you intend to use your cellphone solely to call overseas, and it's
unlocked and GSM-compatible, you may find purchasing a specialist international SIM
card to be more convenient than phonecards. Calls to the U.S., for example, using a SIM
card from either Lyca ( &   020/7132-0322; www.lycamobile.co.uk) or Lebara
( &   0870/075-5588, or 020/7031-0791; www.lebara-mobile.co.uk) cost 4p per minute.
You can buy either at independent phone retailers on practically every urban street, and
can fill up either brand with vouchers on sale at branches of Tesco, Sainsbury's, the Post
Office, and hundreds of small retailers nationwide.
To make an international call from Britain, dial the international access code ( 00 ) ,
then the country code, then the area code, and finally the local number. Common country
codes are: USA and Canada, 1; Australia, 61; Ireland, 353; New Zealand, 64; and South
Africa, 27. For calling collect or if you need an international operator, dial &   155. Alterna-
tively, call via one of the following long-distance access services: AT&T USA Direct
( &   0800/890011 or 0500/890011), Canada Direct ( &   0800/890016 ), Australia Direct
( &   0800/890061 ), and NZ Direct ( &   0800/890064 ). For directory assistance, dial
&   118118.
Callers beware: Many hotels routinely add outrageous surcharges onto phone calls
made from your room. Inquire before you call. It may be a lot cheaper to use your own
calling-card number or to find a phone card.
Time Britain follows Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) between late October and late
March. Daylight-saving British Summer Time (BST), 1 hour ahead of GMT, is in operation
for the rest of the year. London is generally 5 hours ahead of U.S. Eastern Standard Time
(EST), although because of different daylight-saving time practices in the two countries,
there's a brief period (about a week) in autumn when Britain is only 4 hours ahead of
New York or Toronto, and a brief period in spring when it's 6 hours ahead. Sydney is 10 or
11 hours ahead of U.K. time, Auckland 12 or 13 hours ahead.
For help with time translations download our convenient Travel Tools app for your
mobile. Go to www.frommers.com/go/mobile and click the Travel Tools icon.
Tipping Whether and how much to tip is not without controversy. Visitors from the
U.S. in particular, tend to be more generous than locals—and indeed, some Brits resent a
heavy tipping culture being “imported.”
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