Confessions of a YYC Travel Junkie

[Sidney Crosby's Hat]

Originally Posted by btimbit

Some will, but most will be data only.

It's basically just another sim card, but digital. If your phone supports it you can go into the settings and pick which sim you want to handle which functions

How much would it be and is it worth the hassle over Rogers/TELUS etc. where their roam like home is $12 in the US or $15 in other countries? How much are you actually saving, plus also taking into consideration you can't use voice, etc.

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by Sidney Crosby's Hat

How much would it be and is it worth the hassle over Rogers/TELUS etc. where their roam like home is $12 in the US or $15 in other countries? How much are you actually saving, plus also taking into consideration you can't use voice, etc.

Personally, I would say it comes down to ...

a) how long your trip is

At $12 CAD per day, if your trip to the U.S. is a weekend trip, it may not be worth the time/hassle and disadvantages that come with an e-sim. Although e-sims have kind of removed the time/hassle aspect.

Airalo's e-sim for the U.S. with 2GB of data that is valid for 2 weeks costs roughly the same as one day of roaming with the robber barons. ($11 CAD)

So a weekend trip costs you $24 CAD with the robber barons, versus $11 CAD with the e-sim. Perhaps not enough to be worth it.

Now if your trip to the U.S. (or Europe, etc) was say, 2 weeks, now you are looking at $12 or $15 CAD x 14 with the robber barons ($168 or $210 CAD) vs $11 CAD with an e-sim. Or perhaps marginally more with the e-sim if you buy, say, 5 GB for $21 CAD.

Doing without traditional voice calls and texts becomes a lot more tempting at that price difference.


b) how important traditional voice calls and texts are to you

There might be some people that absolutely need to be reached at their usual 'Canadian' number by traditional voice calls or text for an important reason and for those people a 'data only' sim just won't do.

For those that do not, they just use data based apps (WhatsApp, Facetime, etc) for calls and texts.

[Igottago]

Some great info here on eSims, much appreciated. I am heading to Portugal for a couple of weeks in September and looking at using one. Just to clarify -- If I use an eSim for the trip, but I receive a regular call or a regular text message, I will be charged pay per use roaming fees by my carrier (Telus)? Or will the carrier's full daily roaming fee kick in if I take one call or text?

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by Igottago

Some great info here on eSims, much appreciated. I am heading to Portugal for a couple of weeks in September and looking at using one. Just to clarify -- If I use an eSim for the trip, but I receive a regular call or a regular text message, I will be charged pay per use roaming fees by my carrier (Telus)? Or will the carrier's full daily roaming fee kick in if I take one call or text?

First you would want to make sure your carrier's 'Easy Roam' or 'Roam Like Home' feature is disabled. (Telus calls it 'Easy Roam')....

https://www.telus.com/en/ab/business...-easy-roam-faq

Without disabling that, Canadian carriers will typically use any excuse to charge the daily $13 fee, the moment you transfer one byte of data while travelling or receive a phone call or text.

But it varies by provider. Telus claims if Easy Roam is activated, it won't be triggered with an incoming text.

With Rogers on the other hand, I've had the daily 'Roam Like Home' fee triggered while the phone was in airplane mode the entire time, seemingly due to incoming calls or texts.

I've found the easiest way to really be 100% sure is to just remove the Canadian sim before travel.

Anyways, back on topic, once you disable 'Roam Like Home' or 'Easy Roam' you no longer have the $12-$15/day fee the moment you use a byte of data, but are back to being charged whatever pay-per-use your Canadian provider charges you for roaming for texts and phone calls and data in another country.

So you would need to be even more careful with the Canadian providers if 'Roam Like Home' or 'Easy Roam' is deactivated and your Canadian SIM is active. It can add up *very* quickly.

Telus charges $5 per MEGAbyte for pay-per-use U.S. roaming. Yes, $5,000 per Gig. Hilarious. That's approximately $15-$20 per *minute* for a typical video call.

$25 for a 15 minute traditional voice call. $0.75 per text.

Pay-per-use roaming in Portugal is about the same (more expensive for voice calls).

https://www.telus.com/en/mobility/travel



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[timun]

Originally Posted by cmyden

First you would want to make sure your carrier's 'Easy Roam' or 'Roam Like Home' feature is disabled. (Telus calls it 'Easy Roam')....

Without disabling that, Canadian carriers will typically use any excuse to charge the daily $13 fee, the moment you transfer one byte of data while travelling or receive a phone call or text.

But it varies by provider. Telus claims if Easy Roam is activated, it won't be triggered with an incoming text.

With Rogers on the other hand, I've had the daily 'Roam Like Home' fee triggered while the phone was in airplane mode the entire time, seemingly due to incoming calls or texts.

PREACH! On my last bill the ####suckers at Virgin Mobile charged me several extra days for "Roam Sweet Roam" at $13/day travel to the US... on days where I had the roaming disabled and phone in airplane mode. I disputed the charges with customer service, because my detailed, itemized bill had absolutely no usage whatsoever on those days. No incoming calls/texts, no data usage whatsoever. I made the point: "Look, if I actually connected to another provider's network, I would have had a few bytes worth of data used, just with apps doing small updates and geolocating, right? But there's literally nothing on these days. You guys can't even prove I had the phone turned on!"

Next time I travel I'm yanking the SIM card out and getting a cheap local one (or an eSIM).

[Ryan Coke]

I use knowroaming for my Esim (Canadian company) and for the US 1 gb for 7 days is $3.85. Compared to $84 for easy roam, I can live with data only for a week. I use talkatone for calls, which gives me a US number and can send/receive calls and texts for free.

It isn’t as easy and seamless as a roam like home or Canada/US plan, but I have a hard time ignoring the savings.

And then if I’m travelling with my family, if we all used the roaming plans you have to double or triple those charges.

[Brendone]

Just checked my Telus bill from our July road trip. We put our phones into airplane mode on the Canada side of the border, but we got the “welcome to the US” text about 1/2 km before that, and sure enough, there’s an easy roam charge for that day. I think they count on it not being worth fighting for the $14, but I think I have to, just out of principle.

Also found out Bell and Telus screw you by disabling call over wifi when out of country. Figured we could just use the trailer wifi if we need to make calls, but nope, not allowed. Fine we’ll use FaceTime, etc, but had to activate easy roam three times for various trailer and truck emergencies.

Canadian mobility companies sure have us cornered.

[RW99]

I pull out my sim when I leave the country, just in case the phone or providers mess it up. And yeah, I was with Fido and enjoyed the Wifi Calling out of country. Didn't realize that was Rogers only till after I switch to Telus

[Wormius]

Another thing to be wary of is I took my Rogers SIM out for about a week, came back to Canada and soon realized that a bunch of text messages that were sent to my Canadian number while I was away just died in the luminiferous aether. Might have better luck with other carriers.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Another thing to be wary of is I took my Rogers SIM out for about a week, came back to Canada and soon realized that a bunch of text messages that were sent to my Canadian number while I was away just died in the luminiferous aether. Might have better luck with other carriers.

Thanked for "luminiferous aether".

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by Sidney Crosby's Hat

How much would it be and is it worth the hassle over Rogers/TELUS etc. where their roam like home is $12 in the US or $15 in other countries? How much are you actually saving, plus also taking into consideration you can't use voice, etc.

The one I'll be using, I'll be able to use voice.

2 week trip, $40 for eSim vs $200 to roam with my Canadian plan

[Sidney Crosby's Hat]

Originally Posted by Brendone

Just checked my Telus bill from our July road trip. We put our phones into airplane mode on the Canada side of the border, but we got the “welcome to the US” text about 1/2 km before that, and sure enough, there’s an easy roam charge for that day. I think they count on it not being worth fighting for the $14, but I think I have just out of principle.

Also found out Bell and Telus screw you by disabling call over wifi when out of country. Figured we could just use the trailer wifi if we need to make calls, but nope, not allowed. Fine we’ll use FaceTime, etc, but had to activate easy roam three times for various trailer and truck emergencies.

Canadian mobility companies sure have us cornered.

That's crazy. I wonder if people who live close to the border in places like Fort Erie, Niagara Falls, Windsor, etc. just get dinged all the time and I wonder what they do or can do about it. Seems like a real pain.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

Thanked for "luminiferous aether".

it was probably the coolest term I heard in a first-year modern physics class about how the ancients tried to reconcile nature.

[Igottago]

How does whatsapp work if you are using an eSim or overseas sim card? Isn't the whatsapp account tied to your normal phone number?

[TopChed]

Regarding the esim discussion, I just discovered before my trip to Montana last week that Mastercard World Elite cards have a promo with Flexiroam that includes a free amount of data depending on your card. Mine got me 3gb for up to 15 days, which was more than enough for a long weekend.

There is a redflagdeals forum post here.

I also used Airalo in Hawaii earlier this year. Both took some DNS changes before I could get data working, but it's the way to go when travelling.

[Johnny Makarov]

My friends in Tokyo has an extra Taylor Swift ticket for me so I might go back in February. It's only $936 return with Air Canada.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by Igottago

How does whatsapp work if you are using an eSim or overseas sim card? Isn't the whatsapp account tied to your normal phone number?

It is tied to your phone number, when I put in the sim cards for Japan and Korea on my trip Whatsapp just asked if my number was still the same. I selected yes and it worked just like before.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

It is tied to your phone number, when I put in the sim cards for Japan and Korea on my trip Whatsapp just asked if my number was still the same. I selected yes and it worked just like before.

No one in Japan uses Whatsapp. They used something called Line.... soooo Facebook Messenger was a god send over there. unheard of. lol

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by Johnny Makarov

No one in Japan uses Whatsapp. They used something called Line.... soooo Facebook Messenger was a god send over there. unheard of. lol

Perhaps, but if they want to stay connected with people back home they can use it. A family we met up with that used to live in Calgary was using whatsapp, they live in Tokyo.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Perhaps, but if they want to stay connected with people back home they can use it. A family we met up with that used to live in Calgary was using whatsapp, they live in Tokyo.

oh all my friends are originally from Japan so out of 8 of them only 1 had it and she couldn't remember her login.. lol