Roaming Price Hikes

[alcheyne]

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.

[DukeofUrl]

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.

[Doug23]

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.

[Murat325xx__]

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 

[Leanne_T]

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.

[JohnF199]

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. 

[deeg56]

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

[Carl0ss]

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).

[Carl0ss]

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".

[deeg56]

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<>

[bristolian]

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@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.

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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.