TrojanHorse

For those who rent cell phones when traveling to Europe

Who do you use? why? cost?

I'm going for a month and am going to rent one. Comp will pay it but we don't have a preferred provider for this

thanks

Kagehitokiri

vodafone has free incoming calling in the UK, and free call forwarding for amex platinum cardholders.

Ocn Vw 1K

Please follow in our Travel Technology forum. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz.

sbm12

Do you want a US # or a UK #? That will drive the cost.

I'll rent you a Nokia 9300 cheap if you want, but you're on your own for the SIM.

cordelli

T-mobile had a prepaid quad band for $40, bought that, had them get me the unlock code and use it with a United Mobile SIM card. Another prepaid fell out of my pocket as I was leaving a plane, and the connection was too tight to go down to baggage claim to see if they had it (the plane had already left the gate area when I got back) so I was in the market for another phone anyways. For $40 it was worth it.

But if you travel more then once or twice a year and need to rent a phone, seriously consider buying an unlocked international phone (e-bay, any of the others out there) and a world SIM card (see the sticky above, how much is an international sim card for options)

Kagehitokiri

vodafone is $6.50/day including call forwarding

TrojanHorse

thanks guys

where I stand now is using that I'm leaning toward travel cell as it will work in the countries I'm going too.. UK, Norway and Italy

company is paying the bill, I just don't want it to be outrageous. Since we don't have a preferred provider for this I'm on my own. I don't want something to difficult as I'm quite technologically challenged

some of the recommendations above may be excellent, I just don't know how they work

fredpeckville

A good first question would be what countries will you be traveling in. Will you want call from your USA number forwarded? How many minutes do you anticipate using.

Can you get by with a few cell calls and mostly VOIP ?

Are you sure you need a rental as opposed to just using your phone oversees?

If you use t-mobile, att, and sometimes verizon you may not need to rent a phone at all.

gof

To only semi-hijack the thread, I'm interested in this as well, but I can answer a few more details.

1. Travel around Europe, including UK, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, etc. Possibly to Ukrane later this year.

2. This would be for my own use. Emergency calls from the family and on my own dime for the most part (or minimal expense to company). I'd prefer to buy a cheap prepaid phone (purchase in US) that I can unlock, and then get some form of prepay sim overseas.

3. Expected usage to be minimal. Having an EU number would be fine. Looking to minimize out of pocket cost so a low cost prepay that would expire would work. I only have 2-3 trips per year overseas these days.

Recommendations?

Edit: Wow, this was on the front page, but it looks like the last post was in May? Bizzare...

ScottC

This thread (and several others like it) seem to be attracting quite a lot of rental store spammers who pretend to be customers. But they don't fool me, which is why it was bumped up, then back down again.

Dubai Stu

I believe in using prepaid SIMs and have posted my solutions elsewhere. As an alternative to rental, however, look at mobal.com. They give you a phone which is essentially a UK 02 phone tied to your credit card and a nice expensable bill. This way you can keep the same phone number and just leave the phone in a dresser until you need it.

p1cunnin

My daughter is in France this summer and I used Brightroam to get her a local SIM card there. She has an unlocked RAZR and the card works fine. She forwarded her US number and the offer a toll free number for calls from the US. The number also has voicemail. The rate is about a third of AT&T for international calls.

Brightroam offer SIM cards from various countries. I'm fairly happy so far.

Xyzzy

UK cellphones have free incoming calls period (while in the UK). What exactly does Amex offer, though?

Dubai Stu

The Manx and Jersey SIMs (UK Islands) offer free incoming throughout Europe and a UK Mobile number that for most purposes is the same as a regular UK number. Some long distance providers surcharge calls to these numbers, but most do not.

Examples:

www.united-mobile.com
www.globalsimcard.co.uk