Little known EE Roaming plans for no additional cost

lhurren

I took out £36 per month EE iPhone 5 contract when EE launched last October. £36 gets you:

• Unlimited Minutes
• Unlimited Texts
• 500MB Data

I'm off to Florida next week and was looking at Roaming costs. It turns out that EE offer special 'roaming plans'. These plans allow you to use your inclusive minutes and texts when abroad. This means that texts are free and there is no additional charge for phoning UK or US numbers. Also you don't get charged for incoming calls.

The weird thing is that the roaming plans cost exactly the same as the standard plans. There is a £36 per month tariff which also allows you:

• Unlimited Minutes
• Unlimited Texts
• 500MB Data

I spoke on the phone to EE customer service and they confirmed there are no drawbacks. It is the same plan except you get the valuable roaming benefits mentioned above.

So I switched from a standard £36 plan to a roaming £36 plan.

It seems this is a slight glitch in EE pricing. If you want to buy a new phone on a roaming plan directly, the handset costs you more. However, if you take a standard plan then switch to the roaming version, there is no additional charge.

visidigi

Check they aren't sneaking in extra/modified terms in on this 'new' deal.

Techhead_2

The roaming plans are supposed to be £5 a month more than the equivalent non-roaming plan; so I guess there is some discount here or a promotion.

The roaming doesn't seem to apply to data so caution would be needed. (Some people seem to have assumed that calls made from the UK to other countries are included, which is not the case)

lhurren

Cheers for the replies. I double checked everything. Same price, no re-contracting yet additional benefits.

Actually it seems that my original plan, which was £36 in October, is now down to £31 per month. So this glitch is only doable for people on the original iPhone 5 plans. Makes sense now, although I'm sure they didn't intend this option.

Data isn't included, no. But I can buy 1GB for around £30 once I get there, I believe. Compared to O2's £120 for 200MB that's a bargain!

NFH

lhurren wrote: »

But I can buy 1GB for around £30 once I get there, I believe.

It could be even less if you use a local SIM card.

redux

I haven't studied this at all, but ...

I can imagine this being available for roaming in Europe but not necessarily everywhere, and given past roaming costs in USA I would be rather (and pleasantly) surprised if this scheme would still apply in USA.

The now standard way for SIMs to have cheap roaming in USA is for the SIM to have multiple identities including USA by arrangement with a network there. So far these tend to be available from boutique operators and using SIMs from smaller territories, rather than large main networks.

I may well be wrong, but I think it's worth checking again to remove any doubt.

Herongull

This appears to be the list of countries:

Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azores (Portugal), Belgium, Bulgaria, Canary Islands, China, Columbia, Croatia, Cyprus (excluding North Cyprus), Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, French Guiana, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Guadeloupe, Guernsey, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Isle of Man, Israel, Italy, Jersey, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Madeira, Malta, Martinique, Mexico, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Reunion Islands, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, USA and Vatican. Calls and texts to premium rate numbers and other non-geographic numbers (which can vary over time) aren’t included.
http://help.ee.co.uk/system/selfservice.controller?CONFIGURATION=1016&PARTITION_ID=1&secureFlag=false&segment=Consumer&TIMEZONE_OFFSET=&CMD=VIEW_ARTICLE&ARTICLE_ID=20251

It appears to be mainly EU countries but also includes certain other countries such as USA (but not Canada), Australia (but not New Zealand), Russia (but not Ukraine, Bellarus or many of the other former Soviet countries). So double check before you use it abroad.

Bollyboy_2

lhurren wrote: »

Cheers for the replies. I double checked everything. Same price, no re-contracting yet additional benefits.

Actually it seems that my original plan, which was £36 in October, is now down to £31 per month. So this glitch is only doable for people on the original iPhone 5 plans. Makes sense now, although I'm sure they didn't intend this option.

Data isn't included, no. But I can buy 1GB for around £30 once I get there, I believe. Compared to O2's £120 for 200MB that's a bargain!

Thanks for the info, my Gfriend is on exactly the same package.
I phoned EE to change from the non roaming to roaming and he did try to charge an extra £5 pm.

I said a friend had upgraded without a problem at the same price, he then went through the options to upgrade on his system and said it would be the same pricing structure.

That will save us loads in bolt-on roaming charges when phoning back to the UK or local calls overseas.

Thanks :T

simax

NFH wrote: »

It could be even less if you use a local SIM card.

Which is a ballache when you need to swap sims every 5 mins when you want to go online - changing settings etc - loss of incoming calls when other sim in etc.


1GB is £25 actually, and is the bundle I will be buying tomorrow when I land in Gran Canaria

Bollyboy_2

simax wrote: »

Which is a ballache when you need to swap sims every 5 mins when you want to go online - changing settings etc - loss of incoming calls when other sim in etc.


1GB is £25 actually, and is the bundle I will be buying tomorrow when I land in Gran Canaria

I have to agree, many of the apps require verification again when switching Sim cards so sim-swap is too much hassle for me.

Great for some people though

TheEffect

I just wanted to post an update in this thread regarding this plan.

I switched to a roaming plan with EE for my iPhone 5. I travel quite a bit, and have recently got back from the US.

As soon as I landed, I got a web page on my phone asking if I'd like to purchase data. I went with the 1GB for £25.

EE have partnerships in each country, so you can use T-Mobile and AT&T in the US, however you will only get Edge speeds on T-Mobile and 3G on AT&T (no 4G) on an iPhone 5 purchased in the UK.

AT&T charge $60 for a 30 day pay go (go phone) sim with unlimited mins/text and a few GB data, so EE's roaming plan is a great deal, especially as you haven't got to worry about switching sims and giving a new number out.