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Expedia’s £30 roaming SIM deal – in the wild


Picture 1
Here’s an example of Expedia UK‘s free roaming SIM card that comes with £30 call credit.

I was having a look at some hotels for my visit to Dublin this week and when I went to book, I saw that I’d automatically had a Sim4Travel sim card added, by default, to my check-out page.

You can unsubscribe from it. But why? If it’s free….

Brilliant, brilliant marketing.

Steve from iTagg commented recently asking about the Sim4Travel rates and querying whether they offered good deals.

Well…

I looked to see what it would cost me to call the UK when I’m in LA next week if I used SIM4travel.

Answer?

£1.19 per minute to make a call, £0.89 to receive a call.

£0.39 to send a text, free to receive texts.

Shit! I was genuinely expecting pennies. I was slightly out.

(Incidentally, global SIM service MaxRoam is £0.85/min to a UK landline).

(T-Mobile UK which charges £0.55/min to make a call to the UK)

4 COMMENTS

  1. Ewan, you say that Maxroam is £0.85/min to a UK landline!? From where? Because I am waiting for my Maxroam SIM in the post in order to use it on my travels. In particular from Egypt – where according to my research on the maxroam website, calls from Egypt to a UK landline will be only 38 eurocents (about 24p). Have I read it wrong and indeed your 85 pence is nearer the mark!!?? I hope you’ve made a typo mate. I’ve decided VOIP when overseas for extended periods is not reliable enough and so have decided to accept the circa 15-25p/min of these kinds of global number services to make and receive calls; but 85p will be just too much!

    And in terms of SIM4Travel, apart from it costing a whopping 49p/min to call from egypt to UK, my big question about them is, what does it cost for a person in the UK (both landline and mobile) to call my Sim4Travel number??? I am suspecting it is a non-UK number and so will cost people the earth to call me. How else can they afford to let me receive incoming calls for free (when that call has to be routed all the way through to an egyptian mobile)?

    steve

  2. Yeah there not cheap in the US!

    I used it in France and Spain and it was only 25p per minute. I made alot of calls back home to the Uk and it was great there and no cost when people ring me – not bad at all.

    I am off to South Africa in December, I am on T-Mobile and they’re gonna hit me with a £1.30 per minute to make calls and £1.30 to receive a call.

    I got scare when I read this blog so I checked the rates – on the SIm I got from expedia – its gonna be 49p to call and its free to get calls in – that no bad at all!

    I think they expensive in the US but good in other areas int he world

  3. yes it is free for you to receive the incoming call. But how much does it cost my dear old mum to call the expedia sim from her UK mobile or landline? I am judging by the complete lack of info about this particular bit of the service that this is the hidden charge nobody seems willing to talk about!?

  4. IIRC the Expedia SIM is Sim4Travel, and they’re dishing out Jersey numbers. Now we all know about what some mobile operators (Three and T-Mobile spring to mind) think of Jersey, Guernsey and Manx numbers when it comes to SMS charging…

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