Hi folks,
Just wanted to let you know that United Mobile are currently selling their prepaid SIM cards at a promotional price of € 14.90 including € 14.90 of credit, so practically the SIM cards are for free instead of the regular price of € 29 (including only € 10 of credit).
The promo price is only available through this link: https://www.united-mobile.com/umo_shop/main.do?ac=exp_aol (Since this promotion is intended for AOL customers in Germany, France and Italy, the order process is only available in German, French and Italian, however you can access your account in English after purchasing)
With United Mobile incoming roaming calls are for free in most countries (whole Europe, NZ, Australia and many more) and outgoing roaming calls are also relatively cheap in most countries compared to Vodafone's roaming tariffs (see http://www.united-mobile.com/cms/website/index.php?lang=12&idcatside=37).
As a UM customer you're reachable on a British mobile phone number (starting wiih +44 7937), which should be charged at reasonable tariffs to NZ callers (through justvoip.com it's only € 0.065/min).
Even if it's more expensive than a national mobile call - better let the caller pay some cents more than paying a dollar or two for an incoming roaming call on your NZ SIM. Actually the more expensive British number may let callers reconsider if the call is really necessary and so keep the number of disturbing calls low during your holidays.
To let callers know my UM-number, I always announce it through the mailbox of my German SIM while travelling.
So in my eyes UM is currently the best choice while travelling.
greetings from Germany,
Inquisitor
P.S.: United Mobile still offer their old SIM cards with numbers from Liechtenstein (a very small country in the Alps), which they call "+423" and is quite expensive to call for callers. Their new service with British numbers, for which the promo is valid, is called "United Mobile+".