Simon Calder: The man who pays his way

Dial M for major expense

For reasons that need not detain you, I have spent some of my life in a room in the Rossiya Hotel with, among others, the former Today presenter Sue McGregor and Huw Edwards, who presents the BBC News At Ten O'Clock. Despite the convivial company, this hotel is as unspeakably awful as its location is superb. The Rossiya is an enormous cuboid blot on the cityscape of Moscow. Its gaunt, artless angles derange what should be one of the greatest urban ensembles in the East: Red Square, the walls of the Kremlin and St Basil's Cathedral.

At least when you look at the Rossiya from a distance you cannot make out the true horror of its Soviet-era rooms. In many, the carpets soon became as threadbare as Politburo ideology, possibly as a result of hyperactivity by the cockroaches (if you're lucky) and rats (if you're not) that comprise your room-mates. But in case your travel appetite is whetted by Margaret Campbell's review of the Rossiya on page 4 of this section, you will be pleased to learn that, telephonically speaking, Russia is way ahead of Reading.

You know that making a long phone call from a hotel room is likely to make a horrible dent in your credit card. Many hotel guests who own mobile phones have cottoned on to the fact that the cheapest way to have all but the briefest conversations is to ring home or office on the mobile and ask them to call back. Easy in Reading or Redditch, tougher in Russia – where, if you happen not to speak Russian, trying to convince the hotel switchboard to put you through to your comrade can provoke a Stalinist refusal. Yet in the Rossiya and its ugly sister hotels strewn across the former USSR, life is simple.

Say what you like about the former Soviet Union and the appalling accommodation it created, but from Vilnius to Vladivostok, every hotel room shares a common benefit: a cheap plastic phone made in Minsk circa 1972, connected uncertainly to a socket on the wall by the time-honoured method of shoving the wires in and hoping for the best. Most of the time, the dodgy technology works, and your friends and family can call you direct in your room. That could save you a fortune, especially if you nip down to the local internet café to e-mail your number home, thus saving the cost of the initial call.

Just don't try the same trick in Reading. The Berkshire town has finally caught up with Russia, in that outsiders may now dial direct to guest rooms in the Travelodge Central. But before you call your chum to chat, be warned that you will have to pay 25p a minute for the privilege, which works out at a fiver for a 20-minute call. Bob Lowery found this out to his considerable cost when he dialled his teenage sons in the Travelodge room they were occupying in Reading: "You eventually get a whopping phone bill as you are automatically connected to a premium-rate line. There is no warning to the caller about this, though there is a small notice in the room."

I called the hotel in question, on an 0870 number, and paid a relatively modest 10p a minute to learn that the money-making system is "a joint venture" for which Travelodge is not responsible. The Rossiya Hotel is a joint venture between megalomanic city planners and people with a grudge against the traveller and humanity in general, but at least you can call Sue, Huw or me for no more than the cost of an international call.

How much should that international call cost, then? Less than Christine Brixey was obliged to pay when her husband phoned home from a skiing holiday in Courchevel using a France Télécom payphone. "He had gone into six call boxes and they all had the same notice advising of easy international calling, i.e. dialling a freephone number which was answered by an American operator who took your credit card details and then connected you. No indication was given of the charges on the notice. There were two calls, each lasting about 10 minutes. When we got our credit card bill we were amazed to see that they had cost £71." See the story below on internet telephony to save cash, and be cautious of any freephone number answered by an American voice.

Moscow boasts not only the worst hotel on the planet; it also has the worst airport: Sheremetyevo, the main international gateway to the world's largest country.

Most travellers arrive at the airport's horribly confusing terminal 2, where the queue for immigration can take a couple of hours on a good day. Having been grudgingly admitted to Russia, and possibly bribed your way through customs, your problems are only just beginning. You then have to squeeze through the crush where new arrivals are funnelled for the benefit of miscellaneous thugs and Mafia-affiliated cab drivers. Transferring to terminal 1 for a domestic flight? You might as well give up the rest of the day since the drive from one side of the runway to the other involves a journey so long and arduous that you may suspect you have travelled via St Petersburg.

From 1 July, British Airways' passengers will be able to avoid the horrors because the airline switches to Domodedovo airport. This has the drawbacks of being equally difficult to pronounce as Sheremetyevo, and nine miles further from the city it is supposed to serve. But it has the advantage of a direct express rail link from central Moscow, with city-centre check-in and what is promised to be a "sealed train", Lenin style, to the airport.

Aeroflot did not feature in the Holiday Which? survey of airlines this week. The four airlines at the foot of the survey are all UK charter carriers. In descending order they are Air 2000 (part of First Choice), MyTravel Airways (formerly Airtours International), JMC Airlines (now Thomas Cook Airlines) and the Manchester-based airline, Air Scandic – which earned the lowest rating for everything from cabin crew to seat comfort.

The UK's biggest charter airline, Britannia, came 13th from bottom, but still beat four big European national carriers: Air France, Alitalia, Iberia and Olympic Airways.

British Airways did considerably better, but will be corporately embarrassed on two fronts: first, because it came two places lower than Ryanair; and next, because its prodigal offspring, Go, can't stop winning awards since British Airways sold it.

Consumers' Association members voted the Stansted-based no-frills outfit best domestic airline, best to France, Italy and Portugal, and best value for money overall. Last year, it also won the Condé Nast Traveller prize for top short-haul airline. But despite the plaudits, two weeks from today easyJet is to erase the brand and remove Go's modest "frills" such as pre-assigned seating; there is still room on flight GO 226 from Nice to Stansted on 29 March if you wish to mark the passing of the airline that showed "no-frills" does not have to be a synonym for "Aeroflot".

travel@independent.co.uk