Vodafone UK Accidentally Removes Plans with 83 Roaming Destinations UPDATE
Mobile operator Vodafone appears to have quietly dropped support for inclusive roaming in 83 destinations on their 24-month SIM Only plans, which for example used to be available on their Unlimited Max Xtra + Entertainment plan. Supporting plans now only offer inclusive roaming in 51 European destinations.
One of the operator’s support agents confirmed the change to one of ISPreview’s readers (Jade) at the start of this week: “We no longer sell plans with 83 destinations as standard. We still offer plans with 3 extras, that includes 51 roaming destinations.” This change does not currently impact existing customers of the old plans.
However, at the time of writing, the roaming page on their website still hasn’t been updated to fully reflect this change and continues to state that customers can “Roam at no extra cost in 83 worldwide destinations on selected Unlimited data Xtra Plans.” But this may be referencing their other airtime bundles, rather than SIM Only, while customers who call or visit a store still seem able to access the packages.
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UPDATE 4:30pm
Some good news, it looks like the issue was due to a mistake on the operator’s website, which caused confusion with their support teams and customers. The good news is that this is now being corrected.
A Spokesperson for Vodafone told ISPreview.co.uk:
“We’ve noticed our website is currently missing our 24 month 83 destination roaming plans. This is obviously a mistake and has caused the confusion with the agent. We’re getting the website changed as quickly as we can as well as making sure our agents are aware of the issue. Our 83 destination plans continue to be available via calling our customer service team on 191 and via our retail shops.”
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Hopefully, Labour’s plans to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU will result in restoration of pan-European roaming. I know I can buy a local Sim but this involves hassle. It’s the only reason I now have a contract with O2 – despite their UZk network being so poor.
Lebara and Lycamobile both offer free EU roaming and some very cheap packages, without commitment.
I think ID mobile might offer the same, but not sure if they do rolling 30 day.
Maybe slightly off topic but Lebara do have some odd clauses in their terms and conditions on roaming on their unlimited SIMS. Something along the lines of a fair use policy that states inclussive roaming is only applied up to the average usage over the last 120 days – or something like that. So, if like me you have no life and work from home on wifi all the time then typical usage is very low. Go abroad and try and get a life and all of a sudden my usage goes up. I would be curious if Lebara actually apply this policy though…it is quite an odd FUP. I would have thought it would have been easier and far more transparent to just have a hard cap – but maybe that is the point.
We are just about to go to Turkey for a couple of weeks and will be using local data only eSIMs in our phones. Calls via WhatsApp and similar. I’ll forward my cellphone to my landline and any messages then get emailed to me by sipgate. It’s a faff, but eSIMs at least means no need to try and find a bricks and mortar local store.
Sorry, that should have been odd terms on their limited SIMs, on unlimited I think it is just a hard cap?
What is your obsession with EU roaming? You do realise the government has the power to ban ALL global roaming charges, if it chooses to.
Most people I know spend their holidays in the Middle East, Pakistan and Bangladesh but you short-sighted, liberal yuppies never consider anyone who is not in your leftie clique.
ID Mobile i think has the best EU roaming deal right now. I am currently in Matla with 5G roaming on ID Mobile with a huge 30GB a month allowance at no extra charge. I was on o2 who had 25GB because I travel across the EU a lot but it was painful when actually using o2’s network.
Very handy allowance for using my phone as a hotspot for work. Plus the 3 network back home is much better that o2 for me.
That is nothing to do with the EU and politics. This is about greedy mobile phone operators. The EU have a law which states roaming in EU must be free. We could pass a law like this if we wished.
The UK Government cannot pass laws capping or forbidding charges levied by foreign mobile networks that operate outside of its jurisdiction. Any such law would force UK operators to absorb the foreign network costs or pass them on to consumers a different way.
It requires parties from multiple countries to agree to cap charges between each other’s countries to something closely relating to the actual charge of delivering the service and not the bloated costs passed to customers.
Earlier this year there was a report on ISPreview confirming a deal is coming between the UK, Norway and Iceland.
The EU on its own can cap wholesale roaming charges because there are numerous countries under its jurisdiction and roaming charges levied between countries under its own jurisdiction.
The UK government on its own can’t because there are no other countries under its jurisdiction.
It hasn’t even been able to ban roaming charges between the UK, Channel Islands or the Isle of Man (some operators levy considerable charges in the Crown Dependancies). The Westminster Parliament hasn’t got the power to do so.
I just returned from a 2 week road trip in France.
I tried my hardest to ensure I had data and phone usage before leaving and was assured by vodaphone that everything was already set up and would just work.
Sufficed to say their service didn’t work and I was left having to rely on WiFi hotspots to coordinate my route for 2 weeks.
Was utterly let down by vodaphone, and left cancelled my SIM only contract upon my return… won’t be using them, it any service that depends upon their network again.
As with everything to do with Vodafone, the poor(ly trained) frontline staff can’t help but mess up – Global Roaming Plus (with 83 roaming destinations) is included in one of the versions of the Unlimited and Unlimited max plans with 3 benefits. I’m surprised that no research was done as simply trying to build an “EVO” handset plan would show them on the website, although don’t ask me why there aren’t any on the SIM Only page, as they’re still available there too if you talk to sales and not support.
The roaming prices are also wrong… This article was definitely written at some point after bedtime – Zone A is included, Zone B is £2.25 (or 8 days for £10/15 days for £15) and only Zone C is £6.85
This is about the SIM Only plans.
Spotted this last week, but failed to tell you sorry.
Its why I didn’t join Vodafone or Three for my new Sim only contract, went with 02.
Globalisation was sold to us as a benefit because everything gets cheaper. With IP connectivity globally, the costs of offering global roaming have never been cheaper to the likes of Vodafone, yet they’re charging us more and more for it. And the introduction of an annual increase of inflation plus 3.9% was a masterstroke of genius by ofcom or whoever allowed it.
Rip off Britain is alive and well
The RPI (or whatever it’s called now) is one of the main reasons why I won’t touch the big 4 networks and stick with the MVNO’s
I don’t need priority concert tickets or an Amazon Prime add on either
No company should be allowed to increase an agreed contract term – mid way. When I left EE after many many years I told them that this was a factor. One of my neighbours works for EE at a local call centre and they know that if they don’t retain the customer, then they’re lost forever as there’s so much competition out there with the MVNO’s that are much cheaper than them with very little commitment needed other than a 30 day rolling agreement
In the 10 years on Giffgaff with my work phone, their plan has only increased once from £5 to £6
Well if you guys who base facts on online store fronts and the plans offered, your information would stop there.
Had you actually bothered to go into a store, you would find that Vodafone offer roaming on plans starting from £13 per month for xtra plans – you know the ones that are sold with phones? Yeah they sell them stand alone.
Standard simply plans? Yeah those were sold without inclusive roaming from August 2021 onwards
What’s the lesson here? Don’t take anything at face value
Don’t talk to me about popping into Phone Shops
TRUE STORY
My brother in law (in a wheelchair) went into his local Vodafone shop to discuss his plan after his iPhone contract ended. He’s 76. The lad in the shop told him he could offer a SIM only plan. He was interested in a 5 or 6GB plan. He said he could get them one with 150GB for just a little more. My brother in law thought that 150 sounded better than 5 and thought it was the speed of the data, similar to their internet which went from 18mb with ADSL TO 70mb and signed up. 6 months later it suddenly increased with the RPI so I asked him to get a PAC Code and we’d switch him to another network
He was informed that when he went into the shop he signed up to a 24 month deal. He’s 76, in a wheelchair and thought it was the speed. He is at home all the time and only pops out once a week for shopping or hospital visits. He doesn’t even use half a meg and they should have been able to see this or asked him about his lifestyle. It was obvious that he’s not out all day on the razzle from being in that chair.
Despite him pleading with them and me also speaking to them, with his authority, they would NOT release him from the contract. He will never walk into a phone shop again. Thankfully this contract finally ended in July and I moved him to Lebara which uses the same Vodafone signal and is £4.99 a month
The lad in the store, seen him coming and not all mobile phone shop staff are the same but they really ripped him off big time. It was a very disappointing scenario
I’m not sure that staff in phone shops should be assuming that just because someone is 76 it means they don’t use mobile data, or assuming that they aren’t in a position to be making data bundle choices for themselves. If they were clearly presented with the prices and the small increase for 30x the amount of bundled data and made a decision then that’s not really the fault of the person in the shop – yes of course everybody tries to upsell, but if they weren’t dishonest about it I don’t see the problem.
@ Johnny
As I said, they would easily be able to seen how much data he was using by looking at his account – I put half a meg on the post but I meant half a GIG a month. 5 or 6 would be adequate for him and this is something they should have done – he went in wanting 5 or 6 GB a month and they upsold it to 150GB
I didn’t dispute the contract terms, he thought it was month to month but in all likelihood they would have told him it’s 24 months, but he’s 76 and probably didn’t take any notice. He out of it now anyway
Bad customer care and he will never go back
Completely false information im a manager in vodafone and this sint correct at all