Changes to Vodafone Data Roaming - WAS £10/pm NOW £90/pm!!!

AddieB

I spend a lot of time travelling in Europe and for me Vodafone Data Traveller has been a godsend. I was travelling around Europe for 12 months last year and I was able to deal with all my customers via e-mail thanks to the 25/MB a day tariff called Vodafone Data Traveller for a fee of £10/mth. It may not seem like a lot put properly managed (and with a Blackberry) I only once in 320 days abroad exceeded 25MB.

For contract customers this service has now been suspended and has been replaced with Vodafone Euro Traveller which costs £3/day. So now in order to keep in contact with my customers I will have to pay £90/mth... an increase of £80!

Vodafone Data Traveller does still exist for PAYG customers @ 25mb/day but costs £2/day so still £60/pm for a service that was costing me £10.

Other networks offerings aren't much better with O2 charging £1.99 for 25/MB and Three while offering "unlimited" roaming abroad charge £5/day for the privilege.

What's more I have taken out 2 new contracts with Vodafone and have encouraged countless more to do so through my blog and recommendation and feel totally mislead

My blog post with some more detail is here:
http://www.europebycamper.com/2012/06/big-changes-to-eu-roaming-data-tariffs.html

AddieB

Also of concern is this hidden in the small print:

"Once opted in, a daily charge of £3 will be applied automatically to your bill when you use your phone within our Europe Zone, this includes when you use your allowance."

So it would appear that if you are opted in to EuroTraveller you will be charged £3 per day for any outward (making calls, making text messages, using data)!! So £3 for one text message!!

But also more worryingly is this hidden in the T&C's
"By opting in to Vodafone EuroTraveller you'll also be opting out of the European 50 euro monthly mobile internet spend cap."

So you are also opting out of the security that the EU has put in place by not allowing you to exceed 50 euro on a package which is supposed to offer a better deal to consumers!

grumbler

AddieB wrote: »

But also more worryingly is this hidden in the T&C's
"By opting in to Vodafone EuroTraveller you'll also be opting out of the European 50 euro monthly mobile internet spend cap."

So you are also opting out of the security that the EU has put in place by not allowing you to exceed 50 euro on a package which is supposed to offer a better deal to consumers!

It's not a better deal if you get cut out after reaching the limit. And without a bundle you will reach it instantly.

AddieB

grumbler wrote: »

It's not a better deal if you get cut out after reaching the limit. And without a bundle you will reach it instantly.

I think you're missing the point, in that a service which used to cost £10/mth now has been repackaged and costs £90/mth.

A better deal compared to the standard tariff it may be, but not a better deal for those that need daily access to e-mail when abroad.

I suspect this has come about because many smartphone users are unable to keep below the 25MB limit imposed and therefore it is simply easier to keep it as a flat rate £3/day.

I can certainly see the logic, but it doesn't make the £80 price hike any easier to stomach.

chanz4

Why not ask about a business contract?

gjchester

AddieB wrote: »

I think you're missing the point, in that a service which used to cost £10/mth now has been repackaged and costs £90/mth.

...

I can certainly see the logic, but it doesn't make the £80 price hike any easier to stomach.

Wonder what would go up to cover the EU data cap coming in , and I guess this is it.

AddieB

chanz4 wrote: »

Why not ask about a business contract?

Makes no difference. The only difference is the prices are displayed ex VAT.

gjchester wrote: »

Wonder what would go up to cover the EU data cap coming in , and I guess this is it.

Precisely. The EU are dictating what networks can charge customers / each other so they're making their money on bundled charges instead.

If you was on Euro Traveller and sent 1 text message it would cost you £3.

Ourtour

Hi all, while we wrangle with Vodafone, we're looking to an alternative method of getting onto the cellular data network in Europe. We use very few phone calls (Skype usually works and is cheaper), but need data every day. This option looks like the best for us: EuropaSIM.com.

They provide a €39 SIM (including €5 credit), valid in 33 EU countries, which provides 100MB of data per day (only if you connect on that day) for €2 per day, or 150MB for €6 a day. Tops ups are via PayPal and appear to incur a per transaction fee of €3.90 per top-up, with each max top-up of €50. As the SIM is Italian (a Vodafone one, ironically), the same deal includes 500MB per day for €2 in Italy. 3G dongles are allowed, but oddly tethering is not.

As we could avoid using the SIM when we have free wifi, the deal would probably end up costing us around €50 a month (we'd be certain never to go over the 100MB limit). A poor show compared with the old Vodafone Data Traveller, but much better than £90 a month for the Passport, plus increased cost of a Vodafone contract with data.

Has anyone used the Europa SIM service? Alternatively, if any other unhappy Vodafone customers are terminating contracts, or trying to, which alternatives are you considering?

Cheers! Jay

NFH

Ourtour wrote: »

Alternatively, if any other unhappy Vodafone customers are terminating contracts, or trying to, which alternatives are you considering?

If you're visiting multiple countries per day or per trip, then EuropaSIM etc can make sense (although it has a high startup cost). If you're spending all your time in one country, you're nearly always betting off getting a local SIM card.

Higgins91

Vodafone Euro Traveller works out incredibly expensive if you are mainly a data user with varied roamed call use.

Data Traveller cost only 10 pounds a month for 25mb a day. In my case calls varied but in total monthly bill if I was roaming for a month was never as high as what it would cost with Euro Traveller - around 90 pounds!

As Vodafone removed the old services without giving the option to keep them, many customers and I are fighting to be released from our contracts as they are now pretty much useless when abroad and we chose Vodafone due to these services being available. Vodafone, however, are not allowing this and so complaints have been lodged with Ofcom, the Ombudsman and BBC Watchdog.

You can see the discontent here:
forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Pay-Monthly-Services/Eurotraveller-questions/td-p/1150087

I urge all of you who are unhappy not to just sit back and take this kind of treatment. The more Vodafone see that people are upset and their reputation going down the drain, the more they are likely to worry and listen!