Orange SIM card France

When you insert an Orange SIM card, you get a French number and lose your US number. That's why some travelers may not buy a French SIM card. Others of us don't care and only want the data. Still others get cheap roaming with T-Mobile or Sprint (free data and texting, cheap calls).

Technically, you aren't supposed to be able to buy a French SIM like this ahead of time. If you buy a SIM card in France at a store, it is required that you bring your passport and register it with your ID. It's not clear how they get around this selling it on Amazon, but clearly a few people have done it. I see that they do require you to register it after two weeks of use if you want to keep using it after that.

The Amazon Orange SIM ("Orange Holiday Europe") also seemed expensive to me. My Dutch Vodafone SIM (bought on eBay) worked great in France last year and in Portugal last month and cost a lot less. Right now you could buy it for about $8 USD and add 20 Euros to get 6GB of data that's good for a month. The Amazon Orange SIM is currently $50 USD for 10GB of data (but some calling minutes) for two weeks only. So for a three week trip you would need to spend $100 or buy another SIM for the third week (unless you can top this one up with a cheaper plan). Maybe you would use 10GB in two weeks - I never have. Buying one of these SIM cards is mostly about saving money, after all.

Thank you, I certainly don’t need 10 GB and I wasn’t happy with the high cost either. I’ll check into the Vodaphone option ( Amazon use to sell that one too ).

Here's my write-up from last year on the Vodafone SIM:

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/tech-tips/dutch-vodafone-sim-card-for-use-in-europe

A few small things may have changed, but it's mostly the same. People are still buying the SIM from the same eBay seller (cheapeusims) that I used, and their activation process seems about the same as mine. Took about two weeks for me to get my SIM. I used it last May and then this May in Portugal again - another thing I like about the SIM, that I can keep it alive and use it in future trips, by adding money to it. However, Vodafone changed how long the SIM will be active to six months from the last activity. I still have some credit left on the SIM and can apparently keep it alive by sending an (expensive) text every few months for about 60 cents each, to push out the expiry by another six months from that date.

If you need to call home to the US from Europe, I really recommend Google Hangouts to make free voice calls to US numbers, even to landlines. The Vodafone SIM isn't ideal if you hope to make some local calls within France (20 cents/minute), but I needed the SIM only for data and could use Hangouts (or Skype) for all of my voice calls. Might be OK if you need to make just a few local calls. Incoming calls are free on European SIMs, so you can give your Dutch number to anyone who needs to contact you and they call you for no cost to you.

It seems so easy...so why doesn’t everyone do this? What am I missing. Does anyone have any insight or advice?

Well, to provide a counterpoint to the more positive comments, I'll relate again my experience with SFR, another large mobile phone provider in France.

I have a spare French mobile phone (not locked) I wanted to lend to friends from the U.S. to use while they were visiting us. The evening before they arrived, on the way home from work, which was after the local SFR store had closed for the evening, I stopped by a tabac literally across the street from SFR and bought an SFR-branded SIM card for the phone.

When I got home I could not get it to function in the phone. The next day, I ran down to the SFR store and they were unable (or at least unwilling) to help me because I had not bought the SIM from them. I dutifully went across the street to the tabac and they were definitely unable to help solve my problem.

So I had a useless SIM.

Later, I went to the SFR store and bought a SIM from them, popped it in, and it worked perfectly.

So -- perhaps you can save a little time buying a SIM from a third party vendor. Perhaps you can save a few euros. But as with all risks, as long as nothing goes wrong, it's great! But if something does go awry, you might find yourself in a better position to be made whole if you had purchased the SIM directly from Orange (or another mobile phone service provider).

Well, Bob, if you buy that Orange SIM via Amazon, you are risking $50 USD - but it is Amazon; they are pretty good about standing behind the products they sell, and if you have a reasonable complaint ("SIM didn't work!"), chances are good you'll get your money back. They are pretty forgiving.

If you buy the Dutch Vodafone SIM I have recommended from eBay, at worst you'll risk about $8 USD. You may not get your money back in case of a problem, but I wouldn't be surprised if you did; eBay vendors hate negative feedback. In any case, the Vodafone SIM I got was sealed in the original Vodafone envelope so unopened and unused. You can plug in the SIM before you leave home and make sure it works in your phone - I did, so I knew before I got to Europe that I'd have a working SIM in the phone. No worries about whether your phone is unlocked etc. once you get to Europe. Doesn't seem like much of a risk to me, given the huge upside if it works. It was much more of an upside when I bought the SIM last year, before EU roaming rules went into effect and I was going to Slovenia, Italy, and France. Vodafone had started offering its EU roaming early, and no other SIM allowed this kind of roaming. It was a great benefit to have a working phone when I landed in Europe, too, without having to hunt down a TIM store or something.

I have friends that spent a large amount of money on SIM cards. We were in France for 3 weeks last year and are going for the month of September. I have ATT as my carrier. They charge $10 a day for unlimited data, text and phone calls to anywhere. They only charge it for the day you use it. It is not charged if you use WiFi. We used WAZE on our phone for navigation. So on traveling days we used it and made all our phone calls to USA. To us it was worth every $.

Oh, the $10/day AT&T and Verizon roaming plans are super easy. Buying a SIM card is ONLY about saving money. For some people, the money saved doesn't matter - they don't want to mess with tech stuff, and they want something easy. So buying a SIM probably isn't for them. We're all different in that.

For me, spending 10 euros last month for nine days in Portugal, using my Dutch Vodafone SIM, was well worth the money saved. I used it every day for Google Maps (you need mobile data for walking/public transit directions), so on AT&T or Verizon that would have cost me $90 instead of 10 euros. Saving about $78 was well worth the tiny bit of trouble, to me but might not be for everyone. (Actually, I had Sprint anyway so 2G data was free just too slow. Vodafone was fast.)

Oh, Andrew H. from Portland, Oregon.

How precious that you had such a nice experience. Thank you for proving my advice that, if nothing goes wrong, reaching for a deal on the margins of legality is great.

But I hope you're not pretending to suggest that everyone would be as lucky as you. Especially with a vendor such as eBay. Have you ever read their user agreement? It's horrible.

For a vistor to Europe, the cost and hassle of a SIM card is not limited to whether or not the card works. Sure, for a resident, it's not much of a problem to make one or more visits to a vendor to fix a problem. For a visitor on a relatively short stay, that could be impossible.

It's great that you're such a good advocate for Vodafone. I'm glad you've had such a good experience with them. And what a mesmerizing litany of all the places you've gone. We're all very impressed.

And -- surely you're not under the impression that what Amazon offers for purchase represents the sum total of Orange's products? Or any other mobile phone vendor?

Here's a link to Orange's plans: https://boutique.orange.fr/mobile/forfaits-orange

Don't get me wrong. I'm not an Orange customer. I'm just a person with their own personal experience in France.

HI Bob! Great to hear from you.

How precious that you had such a nice experience. Thank you for proving my advice that, if nothing goes wrong, reaching for a deal on the margins of legality is great.

You are welcome!

But I hope you're not pretending to suggest that everyone would be as lucky as you. Especially with a vendor such as eBay. Have you ever read their user agreement? It's horrible.

Again - the most i have to lose is $8 if the SIM doesn't work, but the huge upside was well worth the tiny risk to me. Having a working phone when I landed in Europe was a huge benefit.

Even so, I've bought a number of things from eBay over the years that were defective or not as advertised. EVERY vendor either returned my money or let me return the item without any hassle. The reason they have done this is that, if I am unsatisfied, I can leave bad feedback for them, and eBay vendors HATE that - it hurts their sales to have a lower satisfaction score. So it's better for them just to refund the money for an occasional bad product. But, my Dutch Vodafone SIM worked as advertised, and I have been very happy with it.

For a vistor to Europe, the cost and hassle of a SIM card is not limited to whether or not the card works. Sure, for a resident, it's not much of a problem to make one or more visits to a vendor to fix a problem. For a visitor on a relatively short stay, that could be impossible.

And yet, as a visitor, I've never had a problem with one. And by buying one BEFORE I leave for Europe, I reduce most of the uncertainty. It would be a shame to get to Europe and buy a SIM at an Orange store and realize my phone was unlocked or that the unlock code I obtained would not work.

It's great that you're such a good advocate for Vodafone. I'm glad you've had such a good experience with them. And what a mesmerizing litany of all the places you've gone. We're all very impressed.

Thanks! Vodafone has been great. And, I just got back from Portugal - it was amazing! I couldn't eat enough of those pastel de natas - probably gained ten pounds, but they are worth it! Lisbon is really beautiful, too. Let me know if you need any travel tips about Portugal - I will gladly share them.

And -- surely you're not under the impression that what Amazon offers for purchase represents the sum total of Orange's products? Or any other mobile phone vendor?

No, I was under the impression that if I bought a product from Amazon that did not work that, as they have for me more than once in the past, they will refund my money without complaint or at least solve the problem to my satisfaction. Why do I need to worry about Orange's other products or about other mobile vendors if I know Amazon will stand behind a product I bought from them?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not an Orange customer. I'm just a (apparently from your perspective) sadly misinformed resident of France.

I'm glad I could help inform and educate you, Bob. Please let me know if you have any other questions about SIM cards. (Or about Portugal - again, wow - AMAZING!)

Good job, Andrew. Thank you for your informative post.

Perhaps you could post your comment under the Portugal section. You seem to be an authority on all things about that!

Thank you, Bob! I am working on my Portugal trip report now and will post it there soon. I hope you will look for it!

WOW what a nice exchange.