Giffgaff EU roaming and other changes

KCS1503

Giffgaff have now published their scheme for the introduction of mobile roaming to comply with the directive from 14th June, this can be seen at -
https://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Announcements/Take-your-goodybag-on-holiday-with-inclusive-EU-roaming/td-p/20324908

Part of this change is that the existing international zones are also being changed which will have a massive impact on roaming in other places which would normally be considered to be "Europe", for example the Channel Islands and Switzerland.

More detail on this is hidden in the FAQ footnote on the Giffgiff link above part of which says -

Are there any destinations changing from their current roaming zone?
From 14th June, Switzerland, Monaco, Jersey, Guernsey and Isle of Man will move to our “Rest of World” roaming zone, and charged £1/min to make and receive calls, 30p/text and 20p/mb. We'll be reaching out to the people who have been to these places recently, to let them know about the change in advance.

Any call or text from the EU to a country outside of the EU, will cost £1/min and 30p/text.

Most UK mobile operators are treating other European countries as being the same as the new EU arrangement but Giffgaff seem to want to cane their customers hard.

I'm pondering what to do for now but thinking that it could be time for a new non Giffgaff SIM card.

Any thoughts?

KS

Frozen_up_north

"Free" EU roaming has to be paid for by either increasing the monthly cost (EE recently increased SIM only significantly) or by tweaking T&Cs.

Interestingly, Three have yet to announce their changes to contract SIMs, although they have made favourable changes to PAYG.

As always, we need to keep an eye on the small print.

I'm a frequent traveller to Spain and have used Three's feel at home extensively, it has saved us a lot of money in recent times, but our 2 x 12 month contracts are out of minimum term and we are always interested in what deals are on offer with particular emphasis on EU roaming.

redux

Giffgaff made their cynicism about roaming clear about a year ago, when they put outside bundle call rates to 15 pence a minute both at home and in Europe, suggesting the increases were forced by upcoming roaming rules. Meanwhile (last year) most other UK networks put EU roaming rates to 3.6 to 4.4 pence a minute.

For people without a bundle, O2, giffgaff's parent network, has better roaming rates and in more countries, and so do most of the other networks.

Given that O2 has more countries on its list, giffgaff's action to remove those looks inexplicable.

If you usually do buy a bundle, and won't visit the territories with the punitive rates, maybe it doesn't matter too much, but I can see why you would start to look around.

But quite often, for either low or more use, a local SIM card with a data bundle, and making outgoing VoIP calls using either wifi or mobile data, and your UK SIM for only incoming calls in either a dual SIM or spare old phone, may well work out cheaper.

For instance, in 3 weeks abroad last summer, I spent just over £2 - 40 p of giffgaff data for very occasional nav checks (to predict arrival time, rather than for route) on the way, 50 p for calls with O2 on the way, £1.25 for a local SIM with 500 MB and 200 local minutes, and free for 180 minutes of UK calls with FreedomPop. Doing the same this year might be cheaper still, as since then I also have a roaming FreedomPop SIM with some free use (unfortunately not available for new customers at the moment), and I'd also hope there is some chance that the small free data bundles on EE and Three would work abroad (but won't be amazed if they don't, or demand top-up first).

KCS1503

I've stumbled across anothe Giffgaff forum thread where this massive increase in costs of calls is being more actively discussed. This is at https://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Contribute/Roaming-price-hike-in-Channel-Islands-Isle-of-Man-amp/td-p/20370095

The Giffgaff staffer who published the original announcement about the EU roaming changes was contributing to that thread on 31st May but now seems to have gone to ground.

It was also featured in the IT publication called "The Register" - https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/01/giffgaff_announces_roam_like_at_home_package_unless_you_live_in_jersey/?mt=1496328489059

KS

redux

Giffgaff's declared reasoning - high charges for use in those countries - just doesn't ring true at all.

It's as if the decision making and internal briefings just aren't well connected to some simple facts.

O2 offered free incoming calls in Europe from years ago, with an add-on option called My Europe Extra, and Guernsey Jersey Isle of Man Monaco and Switzerland were all on the list.

Since about a year ago O2 have had free incoming calls in Europe for all of their customers, and again including those places.

Edit: I notice that O2 will shortly be excluding those territories for pay as you go customers. So presumably this is why giffgaff is doing something. But it is a quite ridiculous increase; maybe they could have charged about 3 or 5 pence for incoming calls.