topic Re: Roaming Price Hikes in Roaming

Roaming Price Hikes

alcheyne — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 12:40:35 GMT

I am lucky enough to travel frequently from UK to Australia to visit family, roughly once every two years.

Last trip in early 2023, I took out, as normal the ROAM ABROAD pass at £10 per month.

Based on the new changes, it now costs £25 PER WEEK for the same thing. I cannot believe that there is little to no noise on these forums about this outrageous hike in prices.

Anyone from EE willing to comment and justify this?

Just to rub salt into the wound, my children, who have £10 pay monthly accounts get to use their phones for FREE. That includes calls and data.

Re: Roaming Price Hikes

Christopher_G — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 13:30:40 GMT

Hi @alcheyne

Welcome to the community.

Are you on a contract plan or pay as you go?

Chris

Re: Roaming Price Hikes

XRaySpeX — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 13:47:44 GMT

Are your children on a contract plan or pay as you go?

Re: Roaming Price Hikes

alcheyne — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 14:03:08 GMT

Contract. Have been for years.

Re: Roaming Price Hikes

alcheyne — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 14:03:34 GMT

£10 contract with Volt add on.

Re: Roaming Price Hikes

Northerner — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 14:13:23 GMT

Hi @alcheyne

Most people have plans with roaming included, what tariff are you on.

Thanks

Re: Roaming Price Hikes

alcheyne — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 15:20:55 GMT

EE Essentials 100GB with Roam in EU - Free

Re: Roaming Price Hikes

alcheyne — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 15:37:54 GMT

Adding fuel to the fire...after a long chat with customer services, they have advised that, for my trip, I should take a pay as you go sim, from a local provider. If that does not tell you how bad this pricing model is, I don't know what will.

I do not think I have ever heard a service provider of any type recommending a customer use a competitor because of their insane pricing.

Re: Roaming Price Hikes

bristolian — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 16:41:25 GMT

A local provider in Australia will come with an Australian number. Make sure anyone who calls you from the UK is aware of international call charges, and remember that outbound calls to UK numbers will be the same. App-based calling will only mitigate between users of that app, and won't support calls to or from landlines or non-app users.

The point being, both roaming & local-SIM solutions have pros & cons.

Re: Roaming Price Hikes

alcheyne — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 17:15:41 GMT

Looking at local providers, I can get a 28 day sim only contract for 30-60 ozzie dollars (15-30gbp) with anywhere between 30 and 60GB data and free unlimited local calls and messages. As most of my family will be in Australia, this is ample.

My phone supports dual sim, so I will put my uk sim on answer phone and voip calls only with data turned off. This will allow Whats app etc via wifi and normal phone functionality for other activities. Should cover 99% of what I will need and at a fraction of the cost.

Admittedly, this is a very poor solution, but after the conversations I had with EE today, I would rather fill the pockets of some Ozzie telco than EE, who I will be migrating from at the earlies opportunity.

Incidentaly, Ofcom state that price changes should be clear and concise to be legal. Try and find something clear and concise on EE regarding these price hikes. Good luck.

Re: Roaming Price Hikes

DukeofUrl — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 01:56:09 GMT

Try Felix mobile. I use them when I’m in Australia. You can pause your subscription and unused data is banked for 12 months I think.

They do eSIM but you can only activate once in Australia.

Re: Roaming Price Hikes

Doug23 — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 13:45:34 GMT

Likewise I go to Australia with work regularly and some other EU and non-EU trips, was originally paying £15/month then went up to £25/month for the roam abroad pass now it'll be £25/week!!! a 4x increase in price in one hit. Absolute lunatics and fobbing it off as 'cost increases', bet they didn't see a 4 fold increase in their costs. Just an opportunity to gouge the customers. If it's gone up so much then how can other providers offer such cheaper alternatives.

I'll def be moving the contract when it's up and using another provider with a second sim for international travel.

Re: Roaming Price Hikes

Murat325xx__ — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 13:41:05 GMT

I visit USA 2-4 times a year. Tried to get Roaming on EE and noticed they increased prices fourfold from £25 per month to £25 per week.

No thanks

Re: Roaming Price Hikes

Leanne_T — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 14:50:23 GMT

Hi there @Murat325xx__

Thanks for coming here.

If you call us on 150, the team will go through all available options for roaming to see what be more suitable for you.

Leanne.

Re: Roaming Price Hikes

JohnF199 — Mon, 27 Jan 2025 21:45:11 GMT

Fully agree. Went to plan for next trip in April and couldn't believe what I saw. Only in October it was £25 for 30 days. Now it's £25 for 7 days. Outrageous.

Re: Roaming Price Hikes

deeg56 — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 12:18:42 GMT

Your experience is as mine. £10/30 days Roaming Pass last year now £100 for 28 days ON TOP OF whatever you are paying monthly in UK.

An Aussie sim e.g. Amaysim will give you international calls and texts to UK and 40 other countries as well as in Oz for £15/28 days - no brainer.

Also EE will charge you almost £2/minute to send AND receive calls when in Oz, so I suggest you turn off your message service before you leave UK and only activate your UK sim when you need to receive a text e.g. for 2 stage verification, and that is free

When I get back to UK our EE family mobiles are out of contract and a quick glance at MSE indicates we will be enewing with another operator.

Bad decision EE, your pricing for Roaming Passes is extortionate

Re: Roaming Price Hikes

Carl0ss — Mon, 05 May 2025 20:52:27 GMT

I used to think EE were OK, but their roaming comms say roaming is getting "better". But it is so much worse, so expensive now. There's no point using EE roaming unless you are going away only for a weekend. I've been using esims from my travel destinations instead, but if EE were a reasonable price I'd stick with EE and not bother with esims. But they're about 10 times more expensive than getting a local esim (places I'm looking at are NZ and Korea).

Re: Roaming Price Hikes

Carl0ss — Mon, 05 May 2025 20:56:19 GMT

See his message above. He called customer services and they advised him to buy a local Sim.

"‎Adding fuel to the fire...after a long chat with customer services, they have advised that, for my trip, I should take a pay as you go sim, from a local provider. If that does not tell you how bad this pricing model is, I don't know what will.

I do not think I have ever heard a service provider of any type recommending a customer use a competitor because of their insane pricing".

Re: Roaming Price Hikes

deeg56 — Mon, 05 May 2025 21:17:56 GMT

Agreed, currently EE total rip off. Using local Australian SIM gives you free calls and texts to UK and Oz +50gig data for less than £14 per 28 days no contract. EE £100per month on top of your monthly UK fee.

Sent from Outlook for Android<>

Re: Roaming Price Hikes

bristolian — Mon, 05 May 2025 21:24:29 GMT

@Carl0ss wrote:

I used to think EE were OK, but their roaming comms say roaming is getting "better". But it is so much worse, so expensive now. There's no point using EE roaming unless you are going away only for a weekend.

Under the previous pricing regime, flat-rate roaming was restricted to the EU and a handful of long-haul destinations.

For travellers frequenting the many destinations that now have flat-rate pricing, this refresh has provided welcome improvements. All of which include use of your UK number for incoming calls, one of the major downsides of using local SIM.

Just to provide some balance to the negativity.