Roaming Mexico

[PC61]

Message from EE said click the link to the EE message to activate roaming when you land. I was unable to activate the roaming add on because I could not connect to an EE network and other networks would not allow this action. If I had known this I would have purchased the add on before I left the UK. Spent 10 days on coffee shop wifi and very expensive roaming charges so I'm not happy!

[bristolian]

It's by design that the free roaming facility, which is what enables access to foreign networks, needs to be activated before leaving the UK - otherwise you wouldn't get coverage abroad. There are predictable consequences of that - namely an inability to make or receive calls, send or receive text messages or use mobile data.

Equally, EE's design is to only allow roaming add-ons to be purchased once you are roaming - this used to be an option for pre-travel but was removed a while back, with the pricing refresh IIRC.

You mention paying roaming charges, so which country were you visiting?

[PC61]

It was Mexico I checked in advance and it said you could buy roaming pass by clicking on the text message you get on landing. Clearly this  is not the case for everywhere which is very misleading

[bristolian]

Yes, the welcome text message on first arrival serves at least 2 functions

1: Demonstrates a connection to a local network thus roaming is working.

2: Provides a link to the roaming add-ons page enabling purchase of cost-saving bundles. The resulting page is white-listed against data-roaming restrictions.

What exactly happened when you tried following the link?

[emmadesena]

I have exactly the same issue - I’m in Mexico and travel often and always just buy the pass when I land via the link I receive from EE on SMS. However for Mexico it takes me to the usual buy data page but there’s no option to actually buy the pass and It just displays this message on the buy data page 

[PC61]

My sympathies! I never managed to resolve the issue and I was unable to
purchase an e-sim either. Had to rely on any Starbucks I passed for a wi-fi
connection.
EE should make it clear that for some countries it seems that you can't
just click on the link to purchase roaming add on

[Peter_W · Accepted solution]

Welcome to the Community, @emmadesena.

Just as a quick step to try, can you please manually disconnect from your current roaming network and give each of the others a try to see if these will successfully let you purchase a pass?

How to do this differs by handset, but will usually be under connection or mobile network settings.

Once you disable automatic, this will show all available networks and let you switch between them.

If you're able to access the EE app, it's worth checking to make sure you don't have any spend caps or pass purchase restrictions active, too.

Peter

[emmadesena]

Thank you this worked - this information should be in your FAQs, as I could have resolved this quicker this way with the time difference especially 

[Peter_W]

Thanks @emmadesena, I'm glad to hear that you've managed to get that working now 😊

Thanks for that feedback too - it's certainly something we can take on board for our help pages in the future.

Enjoy the rest of your trip, too!

Peter