efincomputer

Appreciate this might be an OMNI topic, but given the BA thread is my home, and a large portion of the residents are travelling in and out of the UK (well, in normal times at least), I thought i'd give it a go here first. Mods please move if not the right place.

Ever the optimist, i'm hoping the US is open in time for my current planned trip towards the end of October. As most UK networks are scalpers when it comes to roaming charges in the US, I as looking for recommendations from those on the board who are better travelled than myself, and may already have a "go-to" network they find is the best of a bad lot. Ideally I'm looking to avoid massive daily charges, and while I know most networks do bolt-ons of one sort or the other, I know at least there is a chance of some real world use cases on here.

Mainly looking for plenty of mobile data (will be using hotel Wifi whenever I can, but intend to post a lot of photos on Instagram etc whilst travelling), and being able to call back to the UK (mobile number). Will be travelling across both East and West coast (in case that makes a difference to roaming partners) and (whilst I suspect this is an impossible task for UK-based providers), any which have a "free" wifi deal onboard for American Airlines would be tops - but I know that's almost 100% not going to happen.

As always, all help is appreciated.

Robespierre

Three includes the USA in its inclusive roaming package but you have a fair usage restriction of 12GB per month for any roaming. After the latest moves by EE and Vodafone to curtail EU Roaming I have just switched from Vodafone to Three myself. A few downsides but not enough to make me think twice about it.

mikeyfly

I think my Vodafone corporate phone only charges a cap of a fiver a day in the US and coverage was decent enough… hopefully you’ll get to enjoy your rescheduled trip next year

CKBA

Being US based at present I have the T-mobile Ultra package with unlimited calls/texts to the UK (and about 60 other countries) for $10/month. Otherwise, my UK 1p mobile account is 10p/min, 5p/text and 2p/MB.

EDIwanderer

I’ll second the Three message. Use it on multiple thousand miler road trips for GPS and have never hit the 12GB limit. Also good for calls and texts but I don’t like speaking to people and use WhatsApp to message so doesn’t affect me.

SavvyTravel

A third vote for Three. Although nearly all leisure I’ve never hit the 12Gb cap; in part I guess because of using Wi-Fi. the coverage has been good too. Lastly, the ease of use is so so simple. You don’t even need to tell them; just be wary of, I think, a nominal 30 day max period away.

denhaagflyer

a fourth vote for Three! have used it across the globe in many countries (before the pandemic) and never ran into the limit.

seat1C

Agree Three is the best one - be careful though, that your allowance only covers calls and texts back to the UK and not within the foreign country, which you'll still get charged for if you use the mobile signal for that. I got caught out badly on that once whilst in Australia.

rbgs

Agree with all the positive comments about Three. I never use close to 12MB in a normal month, so it has never been a problem to stick to that limit abroad.

plunet

And if you are tempted to take a Three contract, there are some decent cashback deals through Topcashback or Quidco at the moment... Eg. 30G per month, £12 month so a total of £144 a year, and £50ish cashback which if it pays out (usually takes several months) discounts it to less than £8 a month.

Quark999

Dissenting opinion on Three, although my knowledge is several years out-of-date - on several trips to the US I had issues with Three, which was definitely throttling speeds while roaming, to the point of being unusable. I switched to EE, and later Vodafone, and never encountered similar issues. I prefer Vodafone for roaming, as they have the widest global coverage, including destinations like South Korea, and were always speedy. The issue is that you need to be on the high-end plans with EE and Vodafone to get inclusive roaming, but IMHO you get what you pay for. I still occasionally read about poor roaming speeds on Three, so I don't think the issue has gone away completely.

lhrsfo

I’ve had Three for many years now and (formerly) used to use it regularly in the US. I have always found it to be excellent but it does rely mostly on TMobile which seems strong where I go.

cauchy

I'd also suggest having a look at e-Sim with an iPhone -- there are specialist providers for roaming. When roaming fees come back to Europe I'll be using this:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT209044

UKtravelbear

O2 charge £4.99 a day for the US - if you already use them as your provider.

I wouldn’t call that “scalping” and they do some very reasonable tariffs where roaming is included if you have a 12 month contract with them.


I’d start by looking at what your current - unnamed - provider offers. Because if you went off contract access the cost can mount.

angled

I would also warn about Three. If you are fairly undemanding then their roaming support is simple and works. But it's clear that they shape the traffic very aggressively. There have been times when Google Maps, for example, was unusable. Yet, when I turned on my VPN, it worked perfectly. So do not assume the speed/bandwidth you'll experience will be the same as whatever somebody with a native SIM on the same foreign network would get. Three believe they know better than you which sites should be allowed to run quickly or not.

Three can also sell you a "Data Passport" for £5, which will remove the horrific traffic shaping restrictions and enable tethering. However, you cannot order this in advance, it sometimes take up to an hour to activate, and each usage period terminates at midnight UK time. So I've had time when I've landed into JFK at, say, 3pm, had to wait 30-60 minutes for the Data Passport to activate, only for it to switch off again by 7pm. And then you have another 30-60 minute wait for it to activate again (and another £5).

Net-net: the bundled/'free' roaming for lots of countries is better than nothing. But go in with your eyes open. Tethering is disabled, the traffic is shaped to an almost hilarious degree and the annoying activation delays (and midnight UK time cutoff) with the Data Passport product leaves a very bad taste in the mouth.