It’s summer! The travel industry is in full swing after a tough few years and lots more people are travelling abroad. Whether you’re travelling for work or pleasure, don’t let unexpected mobile overspend take the shine off your trip.

Knowing the best way to reduce and mitigate expensive roaming whilst travelling abroad can seem complex. In this article, we break down the basics and provide some guidance to help you keep costs down. Each mobile network handles mobile data differently whilst travelling, so we have included an overview for O2, Vodafone and EE.

It’s always best to plan ahead wherever possible. Speak to your provider to seek best advice depending on your travel location and planned activities. Good providers will be able to react to travel quickly and sometimes even retrospectively, but it’s always worth informing the provider and being informed of their advice before travelling.

We’d also encourage users to use (trusted) Wi-Fi access whenever traveling, keeping data roaming to a minimum to avoid potential unwanted costs. In some circumstances our advice will be to simply turn data roaming off.

If you are on O2:

O2 still support Roam Like At Home (RLAH) which provides the ability to use your standard tariff allowances when abroad in 39 other European countries.

The 39 countries included in O2’s RLAH service currently are:

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Faroe Island, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Guernsey, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Jersey, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Martinique, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

If you are on an Unlimited O2 agreement, the data allowance in RLAH countries is reduced to 25Gb per month, otherwise you consume your allowances as usual.

Beyond that, O2 offer a 24-hour (midnight to midnight) fixed price roaming bundle for £9.75. The allowance of minutes, SMS and data included in the bundle will depend on the destination country. For example, whilst you will get access to 500Mb per bundle in the USA, it’ll only be 2Mb in Bora Bora.

Some countries, Mauritius for example, don’t have access to these bundles and will just carry a charge for usage, which will be very expensive!

Be aware that the timing and receipt of usage from rest of world destinations varies from country to country and alerts can be delayed where data is received late. Users should be encouraged to use apps on the handset to monitor data usage.

If a user spends more than £100 in Rest of World (RoW) data passes or usage in a 24-hour period, then as soon as this rating comes through an automatic GRPS bar will be added pending further investigation.

All O2 connections are automatically set up with Roaming 24-hour Travel Pass. If you have a user not wanting this Option, you’ll need to contact your provider for alternative rates.

If you are on Vodafone:

Vodafone no longer offer RLAH which means wherever you are off to, you’ll need to plan your roaming expenses to avoid expensive overspend.

The international travel options can be pretty good on Vodafone as they offer their World Traveler Service (WTS):

Available on all our Vodafone tariffs, users can get full access to their UK allowances and bundles (up to 25Gb) while roaming worldwide for just £5.45 per calendar day (midnight to midnight). Users can use their device while roaming in a selection of almost 60 countries with no need to worry about expensive pence per minute rates.

The 60 countries on Vodafone WTS currently are:

Afghanistan, Albania, Andorra, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Aruba, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Bermuda, Bonaire, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, British Virgin Islands, Cambodia, Canada, Cayman Islands, Channel Islands (inc. Guernsey / Jersey / Isle of Man), Chile, China, Columbia, Costa Rica, Curacao, Democratic Republic of Congo, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Faroe Islands, Fiji, Georgia, Ghana, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guam, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Laos, Lesotho, Macau, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Montserrat, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Reunion, Russia, Saba (Netherland Antilles), San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Sint Eustatius (Netherland Antilles), Sint Maarten, South Africa, South Korea, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, St.Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Suriname, Swaziland, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Turks and Caicos Islands, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, US Virgin Islands, USA, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, and Vietnam.

Outside of this, the pence per minute rate, SMS costs and data charges will vary depending on the destination country. For example, in Bahamas, each Mb of data will cost just £0.09 whilst in Somalia, each Mb will cost a whopping £5.40.

If you are on EE:

EE is slightly different again, and pretty straght forward. Like O2, our EE service plans still include Roam Like At Home (RLAH) for the associated EU countries, which means users can consume their UK allowances for calls, SMS and data whilst in those countries.

The 39 countries included in EE’s RLAH service currently are:

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Faroe Island, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Guernsey, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Jersey, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Martinique, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

When travelling outside of these RLAH countries, EE split their Corporate Daily Roamer service into two zones; A and B, depending on which country the user is in. A daily (midnight to midnight) bundle is available for each zone, providing unlimited calls and SMS along with 500Mb of data. Zone A is £3.60 and Zone B is £6.60. A user can consume more than one of these in any 24 hour period.

The EE Zone A countries are:

USA, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, Turkey, China, Hong Kong and Australia

The EE Zone B countries are:

Albania, Andorra, Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Brazil, British Virgin Islands, Caicos Islands, Cayman Islands, Chile, Costa Rica, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Georgia, Grenada, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Israel, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Montenegro, Nicaragua, Peru, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Vietnam

If the user is in a country which isn’t in either Zone, then charges will be billed on usage at £3.45 per Mb which can work out to be expensive!

Summary:

Our main advice is to think about where you are going and what you plan to do. If you need your mobile to roam, speak to your provider to make sure it will be delivered in the most cost-effective way. Each network has a slightly different approach, but generally countries are ‘zoned’ depending on the deals each mobile network has with each destination country. It changes regularly.

Some providers will use the networks above but have their own set of roaming costs which might be different to the information in this article. Always check with your mobile provider.

Agile Business Mobile Services:

Agile mobile services are designed to be simple and flexible. Offering clients 30-day terms as standard, along with comprehensive usage and billing alerts and caps. You can read about the service here: Business Mobile Services – Agile Comms (agile-comms.co.uk)

Billing and support is managed through our intuitive online portal which you can read about here: The Agile Portal – Agile Comms (agile-comms.co.uk)

Note, prices indicated in this article are excluding VAT and are also a guide at the time of writing and are subject to regular fluctuation.