The Best Advice for Saving Money on Roaming Charges
Once Brexit becomes official, you will have to be really careful about how you roam around other networks outside the UK zone. Roaming charges are going to be insane, especially now that UK won’t be protected by the EU capping charges. Nevertheless, you can still roam around cheaply, and here are some tips on how to do that.
There is good news for EU members, as of June 2017, roaming charges will be completely scraped off on call, text or internet usage. But the UK won’t get to enjoy this new privilege once they opt out of the union though they won’t be automatically thrown out. Britain will still have the option of complying to the EU roaming charges, at will, if they cannot come up with anything better. Nevertheless, there is still a way to use your iPhone or android device abroad and not worry about coming home to a nasty phone bill.
Save Money on Roaming Charges
It’s never a great feeling coming back home to a phone bill that makes you wonder, ‘how did this happen?’ So there are some simple, everyday tricks you can use to keep roaming charges on the minimum.
One is to completely switch off your data and opt to use Wi-Fi instead. There are plenty of free Wi-Fi hotspots all over Europe, and all you need to do is find them. Your cellular carrier won’t charge you for downloading or streaming anything while on a Wi-Fi connection, your only worry should be how much you will pay for Wi-Fi access, whether it’s a hotel or cafeteria. Avoid downloading large images or documents over your cellular data, this is where your phone company gets you with the roaming bills.
Switch Off Data Roaming
Having your data roaming feature on your phone switched on will never affect you as long as you browse or make phone calls from your home couch. However, once you get out, hope into a plane and land somewhere miles away from your house, things change. This is the simplest trick of reducing roaming charges that most of us tend to overlook. Go to your phone settings, find the data roaming feature and ensure it is successfully switched off.
Careful How You Open Emails
It’s understandable that you have to respond to emails while on the go, especially if it’s a business trip. But think about it, do you really have to be charged over 17.4p per mb just for downloading that PowerPoint presentation set for the first business meeting? It’s better to wait until you have access to airport WiFi and make all the downloads you require.
While your cellular carrier charges heavily on large files like videos or photos sent as email attachments, there are no hefty charges for email text. So only open that email when you are sure the content is a brief text instruction from your boss or colleague. If the new capping charges for roaming come into effect as of June, there is a great likelihood that cellular providers will have to start charging large text emails as well. You have to stay vigilant.
Schedule your social media posts
It’s understandable that you have to update your loyal fans as a travel blogger. However, you don’t want to be the kind of blogger who grimaces over insane roaming charges while the world appreciates every photo or video you send them. So queue your posts and have them posted at specific times, preferably when you are in your hotel room and the Wi-Fi is free.
Get A Prepaid Sim Card
Sometimes you just have to get rid of the data roaming worries all together, and this is where you ditch your current sim card completely. Look for a pre-paid sim card in the country you are in and use that to browse instead. Switching sim cards to affect any of your phone settings, you can still make your WhatsApp calls or set up a skype conference anytime.
The new EU capping charges on roaming mandate that cellular carriers like Broadband Choices charge no more than £0.04 for extra minutes on calls, £0.017 on extra sms and £0.04 per extra MB of data. Meanwhile, you can enjoy these new low charges as much as possible while UK still exists as an EU member. When Brexit becomes a reality, it will be time to put on your vigilance hat.