Travel Technology - LHR - SPAIN - ITALY SIM Cards

Hi everyone,

Europe, Spain or Italy SIM Cards?

Should I wait till I get there or can I buy them in the US.

What is the normal rate per minute for local calls and calls back to the US.

Thanks

I have a UK Pay-as-you-go SIM card from Orange. Link to current rates. (http://www.orange.co.uk/talkplans/payasyougo/) It's currently 20p a minute for peak calls within the UK, same price to call the US and most of Western Europe from the UK.

You can use the Orange UK SIM to make calls while in Italy and Spain, but the rates will be pretty outrageous - like 1GBP per minute. Last time I was in France, I just popped into the nearest mobile shop and walked out with a local pay-as-you-go SIM within 5 minutes, that cost about US$0.25/minute for local calls and maybe twice that for calls to the US IIRC.

Thanks..Can you buy the Orange service when you get to London or from the US and they would sent you the card in advance?

If you will be making quite a few calls and getting a good amount of incoming calls, then a Pre-Pay SIM PER each visited country is the best route... You do NOT pay for incoming calls at all if you are in the home country/network of each of the SIM cards.

However, if you are carrying a phone for "peace of mind" and can live with a high roaming rate for a prepay SIM a Vodafone UK or similar SIM may be ideal... see: http://www.vodafonegoingabroad.co.uk/worldpay_payt.htm for roaming rates... Vodafone does have a slightly lower rate (75P vs 90P) for using their owned/partner networks when prepay roaming. With the US to GBP exchange rate though it's still quite pricy.

Thanks..Can you buy the Orange service when you get to London or from the US and they would sent you the card in advance?

There are some places on the net you can buy a marked up prepay card. To be honest, walking into a "Carphone Warehouse" or similar retailer in the UK will have you up and running in an hour or so... UK PrePays also now don't require you to use vouchers. In the prepay start up pack (15GBP to 20GBP depending on the network + includes 5GBP credit normaly) is a "TopUp Swipe Card". Use this at the retailer you buy the phone SIM from or at Supermarkets, Petrol Stations, Convenience stores to top up the SIM. Simply said, once the SIM is in your phone and active and you get the network selected, each time you top up via the top up card your account gets the new credit right away. All the UK networks use the same top up system so you don't need to look for one specific for Orange, Vodafone, etc...

For a list of the networks in UK, Italy and Spain the best bet is to browse over to http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/index.shtml

Thanks..Can you buy the Orange service when you get to London or from the US and they would sent you the card in advance?

AFAIK they won't send you a card in advance, but as NickP 1K posted, just pop into the nearest Carphone Warehouse (that's where I got mine), ask for a Pay-as-you-go SIM and you'll be up and running in <1hr.

I was able to purchase a prepaid Virgin Mobile UK Sim for 10 pounds with 5 pounds call credit and have it mailed to me before I left the US.
Rates for calls were excellent and the Sim remains valid as long as you have a credit and the phone is used once a year.
There was a 3 pound charge for postage and handling. The card arrived 3 days after ordering and I thought the charge was reasonable.
It was nice having the phone number ahead of time and being able to advise those needing to contact me.

In Spain, your best bet is to pick up a Vodafone prepay card. They're for sale in shops and kiosks all over the place, and will cost you 18€ with an 18€ credit. Calls are expensive, but SMS is pretty cheap.

If you will be making a lot of calls, an Amena prepaid card is 25€ with a 25€ credit, but the calls are pretty cheap. Note that Amena is a GSM1800 network, so make sure your handset supports it.

I was able to purchase a prepaid Virgin Mobile UK Sim for 10 pounds with 5 pounds call credit and have it mailed to me before I left the US.
Rates for calls were excellent and the Sim remains valid as long as you have a credit and the phone is used once a year.
There was a 3 pound charge for postage and handling. The card arrived 3 days after ordering and I thought the charge was reasonable.
It was nice having the phone number ahead of time and being able to advise those needing to contact me.

On the Virgin card, did you order online or call them. I tried online but there was no way to put in a US shipping address?

On the Virgin card, did you order online or call them. I tried online but there was no way to put in a US shipping address?

Not the original poster re: Virgin card, but used it last year.

Virgin (www.virginmobile.com, click on United Kingdom) had the best starter rates: 10 pounds for the SIM card, including 5 pounds credit. I researched all available services in the UK, and this was the best combo of starter price and per minute price.

I enrolled online, but was visiting my brother-in-law in Liverpool, so had the card mailed to his address. Otherwise just go into any Virgin megastore in the UK.

Rates: 15pence/min any day/time for outbound calls (inbound are free), 20p/min for calls to the U.S. of A. You can view your funds and call history from their web site also.

I purchased the Virgin Mobile-UK Sim through a reseller and have deleted all the info since the transaction was complete.

I did a search on Ask Jeeves and came up with the following link:

www.telecoms-direct.net

They advertise their price as UK L 12.95 which is about what I paid with the shipping included.

Generally, UK retailers deliver as promised.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to help! :cool:

Just places on order and got this reply....I really wanted to have it active because we have a 6 hour layover at LHR.

Dear Customer

We have been unable to complete your order as we only service UK customers, If you are based in the UK then please supply details of a UK registered credit / Debit card as means of payment.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused

Thank You

1st-Phonecards

Product : Quantity : Price
Virgin - Sim Card : 1 : 12.95

Honestly, if it's only for six hours, why go through all the hassle? Just roam. It isn't that expensive.

Honestly, I have found this to be the cheapest. You have to have a local country SIM though, so that is the only pain.

I buy a T-mobile SIM in Germany, in Spain and a Virgin mobil in UK (only cause it was the cheapest)

Then, I use my debitalk.com account to have a Debit prepay call back number in the US. All my SIMS have this number preprogrammed into them and ready to go with my number 2 button. So, I just hit 2 and wait till it rings the call back number in the US. no charge for this call to "ping" the number in the US.

Then, in about 2 seconds, the phone rings and I have a live open line to call to any number in the world. Calls to the states are .10$, and calls to Europe are .10-.17$ Sweden is the most expensive.

There are no charges or fees or expiry periods for the debitalk card, but the SIMS usually expire in a year unless you use it once a year.

I am usually there once a year, and if not I use them in the states for 1 minute JUST to keep them active another year.

Nice thing about SIMS, they are really small and all fit in a very small SD card case. Bad thing about SIMS, if you leave them out the cleaning lady will throw them in the trash on accident (DON'T think this hasn't happend before, who would make up something like that)

Honestly, if it's only for six hours, why go through all the hassle? Just roam. It isn't that expensive.


I have a Verizon CDMA which will not work in the UK, Spain, Italy. I don't have service on a GSM phone I am just borrowing one from a friends. The phone is not active with any service. We have a 6 hour layover at LHR on the way and two days on the way back so I wanted to at least have that card ready to go....

I'd look for a seller on ebay of some prepaid cards, there are some.

They could send it to ya in the US for sure

I deleted reference to website as it ended with unintended links.

Sorry, but I was trying to link to the site where previously I had purchased the Virgin Mobile UK Sim at a reasonable cost from a UK site prior to leaving the US.

My transaction went without hitch.

In doing a search on the web I found a reseller for Virgin Mobile:

http://www.simcard.me.uk/

They will accept a US address and take Visa or Mastercard.

If you decide to order from them, I would use a credit card as you have more protection than using paypal or debit card in the case of non delivery, although I've not had that problem with items ordered from the UK.

Nice website :mad: They tried to push some lovely spyware in their ad banner...

Please note that I have deleted my refernce to the site with an explanation.

Suffice to say that one can purchase UK prepaid Sim cards before leaving the USA without having to pay outrageous service charges.