Verizon plan surprises

I'm sorry for all your surprises and disappointments. I hope the post will help others.

I have been very happy with TMobile Magenta for about 10 years. I've used seamlessly in many countries in Europe and Asia, Australia, New Zealand. I know others are quite happy as well. I've especially appreciated having one less item of concern to reconcile before I travel. Checking which electric plug(s) I need are enough for me these days!

Just a thought if anyone is looking for a new carrier as a possible solution to overseas phones. I don't work for T-Mobile!!

You might want to consider Google Fi. We have had this service for over a year and are very happy with it. I have the flexible plan for one phone which costs me about $25 a month with fees and taxes per month. I don’t use data. Calls that I make from overseas are $.20 a minute and have been made without issue from many countries including Ushuaia, Argentina. You can check out the details and different plans for yourself online.

T-Mobile has worked flawlessly in France Italy Spain. So happy to have switched over from Verizon.

This is very interesting. I’ve avoided using that company’s international plan because of a single experience in 2019. I was charged for acknowledging its $10 a day existence upon arrival in Europe. No calls, text to data were every used. The company immediately removed the charge from my account. I did not want to keep track of when it should and should not be charging me. I have enjoyed almost 28 years of phenomenal cellular service with this provider. I would have been very disappointed to be charged as you’ve stated.

It’s very easy to set your eSim as the primary provider. On the phone with both cellular and eSim service you would toggle to settings, then cellular, then choose which to be the primary. Depending on your device you may even be able to turn off your regular cellular service altogether.

Thank you for posting.

I've got Verizon and have not had trouble at all connecting to data in the cities you listed plus some. I did go with a new iPhone last spring after I had difficulties with my battery pooping out in Venice while following my route on CityMapper app last October on a RS tour.

If I am doing the $10/day program I just leave my phone in airplane mode until I need to do something off the hotel wifi. I've never gotten an erroneous charge. Last spring I did a combo of the $100/30 days plan plus a few extra days on the $10/day plan as I was over 30 days but not enough that it would have paid to do another month plan.

I know there are sim cards but this is easiest and the least anxiety-producing for me, lol!

I keep Verizon as it's best on the non-interstate highways here in North Idaho (although service at my home is only 2 bars because there is a hill in the way, haha) and more importantly it is the only provider that has service in Yellowstone where I go every year. Coverage there is extremely limited but when it's available I want it.

My relationship with Verizon is currently tenuous. I still do the $10/per 24 hour period in Europe, but I continue to look for alternatives. For the U.S., Verizon at least used to provide the best coverage.

@Pam, you must be living right! We are currently traveling home from vacation in Oregon. We had absolutely terrible Verizon coverage. We had car trouble 40 miles from Roseburg and we had no cell signal. Most of the 3 days in that area, we didn’t have service. We didn’t have good, reliable service south of Mt Hood, even within an hour of Portland. We had intermittent service in the McKensie River area. We were meeting the rest of our family in Hood River and our kids could rarely reach us. They asked if we were in the wilds of Alaska.

Then to return home, we drove thru southern Idaho and Wyoming, again, when we needed service, it was a crapshoot if we’d have it.

I suffered through Verizon for several years, and like ORDtraveler, finally switched to T-Mobile, and I could not be happier with their service. Especially the international plan. It’s free if you have the magenta max plan (now Go 56+, I think) and so easy to use. In fact, you don’t have to do anything but show up in a different country and it automatically starts.

I had held off switching for a while because I wasn’t sure how much coverage T-Mobile had in our rural area. But I have had no problems at all. Pam, I don’t know if you’ve tried it in your area, but you can get an eSIM plan for 30 days with T-Mobile just to try it out. But it sounds like you’ve had good luck with yours.

At any rate, I am very glad I made the switch. I should add that if you make an international phone call, it’s $.25 a minute, but the only calls I made were to local businesses, and they took less than a minute.

As Mardee notes, the international calls do not add up terribly quickly. I was faced with an unexpected emergency with an elderly relative back in the US last month while in Scandinavia and made a number of calls to hospitals, airlines, and hotels making some unexpected arrangements. I was quite pleased to see that my monthly bill was less than $15 higher than normal. Short calls, perhaps. It didn't seem so at the time!

I wasn't monitoring call length and was just looking for quick access so didn't try Google Fi or Skype or other solutions to distance calling that I've used on some trips. TMobile fit the bill for me. Instant connections just like when at home.

"@Pam, you must be living right! We are currently traveling home from vacation in Oregon. We had absolutely terrible Verizon coverage."

I didn't mean to imply there aren't dead spots because there surely are. It's just that Verizon is better than others. Friends have ATT and can only get service along the main highways in Idaho. I've actually gotten service with Verizon while hiking here in N. Idaho, lol.

@Mardee - thanks for the suggestion. But there is actually zero T-Mobile coverage in Yellowstone. There is extremely limited ATT coverage (just one section of road where a cell tower is visible) and even though more than half the park is signal-less Verizon is at least available at all the lodging areas except one. (I did get 1 bar briefly at that location in June but I think I'd have had to stand on the bed with my arms out, haha!!)

We had always used Verizon (either the $10/day Travel Pass or the $100/month plan) until last week's trip to Switzerland, when we tested out using Esims. We went with Orange. What a flawless experience! I agree that the reception and data speed were faster than what I'd come to expect with Verizon. It was also really nice to have a European phone number (for example, I was at a gym where they wanted to text a verification code to access their wifi, and they would only text to a European number). And for only 20 Euros for 14 days!

I am another satisfied T-mobile customer. Switched from AT&T for the international service and have been very pleased.

Another T-Mobile user. We switched about a year ago.