My bad. Yes you are correct, they do use Vodafone. I mentioned it was a poor connection. I believe I saw the connection “E” and dodgy eyesight register in my head as EE.

Ive now been in China less that a day and its been a bit of a nightmare in respect of payments.

When I arrived I attempted to buy a metro psss which was consistently declined on both phones.

The Lebara one is actually now working with Alipay and a Monzo card - but even that failed yesterday with an attempted purchase of 410 Yuan from an electronics store.

My iPhone with the Maya sim did eventually work for the metro payment, but has not worked since. It seems I now also have an “unpaid” 14.5 yuan DiDi bill, from a taxi to the hotel - which with the help of staff, managed to pay with my other phone.

I phoned my bank (Halifax clarity CC) who confirmed they did indeed block the transaction and said all clear now, you shouldn’t have any further problems. Unfortunately I’ve not managed one single payment from that card. Annoying as it’s meant to be my primary card.

Im now left worried with every payment attempted on the S22 Lebara sim. After the electronics failure, the Monzo card happily paid for a meal and cab back to the hotel last night. I can’t help feeling though this will end in tears and it feels exceptionally uncomfortable and now kind of expecting each payment to fail.

inside the failed account, I have 2 cards. I’m not even sure how I can select and change which card is used. The metro card, went through with my current account card which I added. There doesn’t seem to be a way to place in order or name the card either. I’ve no idea what the last 4 digits are on any card I have, so it’s a bit of a mare - but irrelevant since I can’t select which card to use it seems.

The image below was a failed attempt with my iPhone. Doesn’t even say which of the 2 cards bound that failed. I spent nearly an hour on the phone yesterday to try to sort. Just like happened in Indonesia in March.

Of the unpaid DiDi on the iPhone, the transaction for 14.50 does show up as paid on the S22. To date, I’ve only take 4 taxi rides. They all show up as paid, except in the iPhone Alipay.