Originally Posted by
canadiancow
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However, the way it seems to work is that if you have some sort of SMS plan already, then receiving a message while roaming is free. If not, you are charged either the normal receive fee, or some absurdly high roaming fee.
Regardless, an airport lounge requiring the use of your phone for anything seems like a bad idea.
For Canadian phone plans, receiving SMS while roaming abroad is free only if you've got a foreign text plan on your account. For example, Rogers has "travel packs" where you pre-pay for a number of texts. If you have one of those, received texts are free. Even if you have an unlimited worldwide text plan at home it will cost you to send and receive while roaming without an add-on.
Lots of places in Europe use SMS confirmation to register for stuff. Seems very common over there, I've run into it in the UK and Italy within the last year.