Long term travel to USA

[mel555]

Our son is going to the USA as an exchange student for a year.  Can the £25 per month roaming pass be renewed each month indefinitely until he returns home?

[Katie_B]

Hi @mel555. 

Thanks for coming here. 

There is a fair use policy for using your phone abroad. 

We will consider you to have a stable link to the UK if, during any four-month period, you: • spend a total of two months or more within the UK; or • mainly use your inclusive voice, text or data usage allowances in the UK, rather than while you are roaming. If we reasonably believe there is a breach of this stable links policy, we will monitor this based on the combination of your presence in the UK and usage in the EU/EEA/Switzerland for four months. If, during this four month period, we believe or know that you may have breached the conditions set out above, we will notify you of the breaches and ask you to explain the reasons for this,

Please note, if we believe there is a breach of stable links we will be in touch, until then your son can continue with the £25 per month Roaming Pass.

Katie 🙂

[mel555]

So this would mean that he can't use the data pass then as he wouldn't be in the UK for two months at any time.  He would be travelling to the US in August, flying home for Christmas and then travelling back to the US until May when he will be back permanently in the UK.

[Katie_B]

If a breach was flagged your son would be notified before any services were disconnected @mel555. 

I hope this helps, 

Katie

[chistery]

I still don't think I've ever seen anyone report they have fallen foul of the FUP and the FUP doesn't mention the USA either.  the stable links policy was mostly around when we had free roaming and to stop people abusing that.  EE decided to charge everyone so not sure why it really applies now.

For a year in the USA, a local SIM would be better anyway, you get a local number and then local people can call and message easily, and can use data/wifi for whatsapp, imessage, etc to contact back home as well.  

So a dual SIM phone and the EE roaming pass and a local SIM would be the ideal solution in my opinion.

[mel555]

I don’t quite understand where a breach may be. It’s unclear whether you mean it would happen because he is in the states for too long or if he is in the uk for too long. Please could you help me understand.
Sent from my iPhone

[mel555]

Thanks for that. I’ll look into dual. US sims are quite expensive and the £25 per month roaming pass would have been ideal.
Sent from my iPhone

[XRaySpeX]

A breach would occur if he was detected using his phone outside the UK for more than 2 months on the trot.