EU Roaming charges

[peterjamescox]

I visited the local ee shop before going on holiday to Greece to arrange for EU roaming. They told me that it was all free! Imagine my surprise when the charges came....

I shan't be staying, either.

[Michael_D]

Hi @peterjamescox 

Welcome to the community.

Some of our plans do include EU roaming, but not all.

If your contract does not include it, you'd be charged £2.59 per day to use your allowances as you would at home.

Do you have a contract or pay as you go SIM?

If it is a contract, which plan are you on?

Michael

[Chris_B]

@peterjamescox  Did the store ask what tariff you was on ?  No store knows what tariff you’ve got and different tariffs offer different benefits.     did the store even access your EE account ? 

Checking your own online account to see what’s included with the tariff would be the best option or calling customer support.,

[peterjamescox]

Hi Michael. It is a pay as you go sim moved from BT. The issue is not so much the cost, I was surprised that I had free eu roaming,  the real issue is that I drove to the store to arrange for roaming in advance e of our Greece holiday. It was important t because I knew that we would not have a rep on site so communication would have to be via the TUI app. At the EE store , they  checked my account and told me that my eu roaming was included in my account for free so I did  ot need to take any action. To verify, when I got home I used the app to check my account and it shows eu roaming as an active add on and FREE. It asks if I wa t to remove the add on.

The charges came in my next bill....I  tried customer services, then went to the store....nobody will even acknowledge the issue. 

I hate you, EE.

[Katie_B]

Hi @peterjamescox. 

Thanks for coming here. 

I am sorry to hear that this has not been explained. 

When you arrived in Greece did you receive a welcome text with the option to purchase either a 24 hour pass or a 7 day pass?

Katie

[Matt_124]

There's definitely points of confusion on the add-ons for both customers and some EE staff which can be extremely frustrating.

Are you sure it is a Pay As You Go account that you have? (topping up a balance each month manually or via recurring card payment to purchase a pack of allowances) or is it a Pay Monthly plan on a rolling monthly contract with a direct debit?

Recently the addons "Full Roaming" and "EU Roaming" have become visible in the app on Pay Monthly accounts, but I believe these only refer to the capability to connect to foreign networks (signifying roaming is enabled on the account) and are not billing addons.

The relevant billing addons for Roaming are "Roam in EU" and "Roam Further Pass" if you are on a plan that includes these.

For the avoidance of doubt - these addons are only available on specific plans, with Roam in EU included on Essentials Plus and All Rounder plans as well as some select Retentions plans (signified by R in the plan name), and Roam in EU and Roam Further Pass included on Full Works plans.

If this was the case it is troublesome that the difference was not known to the Guide you were dealing with.

[jonathanrawle]

Sorry to hijack the thread, but given that I still don't have a straight answer regarding roaming... I received a text last week saying I don't have to worry about EU roaming because it's covered in my plan. I downloaded the EE app because the website is useless. I have the add-on "Roam in EU" (not "EU Roaming") which the description says means "Use your UK data, minutes and texts while abroad in the EU". It doesn't explicitly say they can be used for free. It says "Free" underneath, but that means the add-on itself is free, which is meaningless and confusing. However. when I use to roaming calculator for a country such as France, it says I need to pay. Other threads suggests this calculator on the app is personalised and usually correct. This was a retention plan, although is recently rolled over after the initial 24 months. No "R" in the plan name.

So which is correct? Would I have to pay for EU roaming? Why is this so difficult to determine on EE?

[Matt_124]

The "Roam in EU" add-on signifies free of charge roaming in the EU. See a screenshot of this on my Full Works plan: 

The calculator on the App is supposed to be personalised and based on which mobile number you select on the account, as in my case it shows this: 

My only thinking is that instead of assessing your addons, the Roaming Tool perhaps now uses the plan name and contract dates to decide whether to tell you it is included in your plan (pure speculation I might add - it seems like extremely odd behaviour and that is the only way I can rationalise it, but it sounds wrong).

As my plan is a Full Works plan taken on or after 29th August 2024 it has the free of charge roaming 'baked in' and the App may just know that in order to give this message.

In your case as a Retention tariff, the addon would have been essentially bolted on to a tariff that otherwise would never have included roaming.

The reason it's so difficult to determine is the unfortunate amount of permutations of each plan depending on when it was taken out, whether it has Inclusive Extras etc.

It's a bit of a mess at the moment.

[jonathanrawle]

No doubt is something like that. The question is, which is really correct: the "Roam in EU" add-on, or the calculator?

I don't really buy that it's "difficult to determine" because there are so many permutations. Their billing system will either charge for EU roaming or not when someone actually roams. Why can't whatever logic is used to determine that also be used to tell the customer what they will be charged?

[Matt_124]

To be fair the "difficult to determine" is purely an attempt to answer your last question - I don't think it should be that difficult as the different permutations should be known to EE and relatively easy to classify. It's basically: "Did plan start before 7th July 2021?" or "Does line have the Roam in EU addon?" or "Does line have 'Roaming Pass EU' Inclusive Extra selected?".

No idea on the technical details of how the billing system assesses to find out whether to charge or not, but the Roaming Tool should be relatively straightforward to get right I would think (at risk of sounding like an armchair expert) and should use similar logic.

In conclusion, good question.