All you need to do is

1. Turn off voicemail. This is important because if you don't answer the call and it's set to divert to voicemail depending how Tesco handle.rhos you might be charged for the call to get to China and back to the UK when voicemail cuts in.
2. Do not answer any calls on your Tesco SIM card whilst roaming in China.
3. Do not send any SMS whilst roaming in China.

If you do the above you will not be charged. It is indeed free to receive SMS when roaming which could be important for AliPay or WeChat pay or any other app that uses SMS for extra authentication.

They might see it as duplication as they will.no doubt tie something back to the device ID. It's a risk. Whether it's a practical risk is another question.

But most consumer Vs are blocked in China from internet connections within the country.

OK, I have done this, I can agree with what you are saying as I've often forgot to turn off roaming at sea and end up with a satellite or sea transponder and never been charged (Though I have got a spend cap of zero which kinda eliminates those risks.) I was just quoting what the Tesco CS rep said which was it doesnt matter if you answer or not you will be charged. I'm guessing that charge would be a connection fee to voice mail?



It would be a different phone and different number. I hear what you are saying re tracking and I think I had to register my passport with the apps (But cant remember!)

What would happen if a resident changed their phone number or had more than one phone? Or can residents not do this without lots of hassle?


OK, well I have gone for the Lebara option with 40GB (and allows 40GB roaming). I am going to download some crap and make a few calls so I have a "UK history". When I called again, they insisted what was commented above wouldnt be an issue on my new temp number - but as you've probably noticed I do try to cover all bases and not take chances, though this might actually be taking a chance! I will register with a Monzo Card for my S22 and

Individual people can be associated with multiple SIMs. Individual SIMs can't be linked to more than one person at a time.

OK, so I just added my Monzo Card to this second phone with the Lebara Sim and as its simply asked my Phone number and Card details and not linked with any ID. Ive logged one card with one phone and another card with the second. (ie there is no link for the cards.)

I suspect this will be OK (As long as the sim does work as hoped within China!) Its certainly a good learning process for next year!

What I think is important to note is that a lot of the local apps/websites don't work well when using foreign data. They either don't load at all or take a lot of time. Luckin coffee mini app is one famous example.

I myself use two sim cards for that reason: HK sim to avoid the blocked apps and the local sim for the local services and both are from CM.

The options I have gone for...

Phone 1 S22 with Lebara Sim and 25GB of data with full roaming to China.AliPay ;linked to this UK number couldnt get WeChat to register any card

Phone 2 iphone Tesco Mobile UK sim, Data switched off. Divert to Voice Mail switch off (and never answer a call). Plus a https://esim.sm/ Sim with Roaming which is HK based (if I am reading this right and the Host is CMlink) So guessing I miss on the local apps (Which I can see the differences in AliPay for example in the "mini-App" options.... Takeaway / Delivered Food isnt available for example

Did you try using WiFi?

I'm not entirely sure. I was at home and expect I was connected to WiFi though when I tried with the iPhone.

The Lebara Sim in the S22 works to receive and make calls - but EE is awful here. I set up loads of YT bits to DL so I had some history - but I just spotted - its probably only captured about 5% or the 20 videos I added to a queue. Hope thats 100% my location and not a throttled Lebara Sim

Lebara uses the Vodafone network in the UK.

TMK, adding/editing cards has nothing to do with how you connect to the internet or IP location, but I'm wondering if there are some nuances at play here.

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.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...495ac9150.jpeg

You can use this app to VPN yourself "into" China so that your data will appear from a China IP: https://www.transocks.com/

In theory the SIM that you're using shouldn't matter at all.
My guess is that this is the bank's problem, and Alipay only tested this with US credit cards

I honestly don't think your SIMs or their IP addresses are the source of your woes, Les.

Rather, I'm guessing that some of the merchants who've rejected you don't support credit card backed payments.

Have you tried adding cash to wx and/or ap? Doing so might be a good insurance policy for you.

Below the QR code there should be a box for selecting payment source.

As mentioned here before, vendors apparently pay a much larger transaction fee when you use a foreign card so those payments can be blocked.

Yeh the one way to give you a back door emergency payment method, and it seems like you're focusing on AliPay as the main mechanism is to find a friendly local (maybe someone at the hotel) and in exchange for some cash ask them to transfer some money to you personally in WeChat. You will be able to pay for something like a local with a WeChat balance, and having this as an emergency backup might be useful.

Don't forget that your banks use intelligence signals to work out where you are and the perceived risk of certain transactions. So whilst you might have a roaming UK IP, opening their app and logging in will expose your location, going to an ATM to do a balance check or take out check will give further confirmation that you are in in China, and if you can actually find somewhere to do a transaction with your western card so much the better (doing it via Google Wallet or Apple Pay using contactless if that is possible gets extra points as these transactions are usually deemed to be more secure than the physical card itself)

You've probably done this for Halifax as you ended up calling them, but just incase it is still relevant.