UK / France travel - use NZ Visa or some other payment option / eSim

Forums › Travel (planes, train, cruise) › UK / France travel - use NZ Visa or some other payment option / eSim

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#3254649 30-Jun-2024 11:07

I personally prefer Revolut over Wise, very generous limit of $2,000 a month exchanged for free during weekdays, after that limit and during weekends it's 1%. You can also hold GBP in app.

timmmay

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#3254653 30-Jun-2024 11:42

kiruti:

I personally prefer Revolut over Wise, very generous limit of $2,000 a month exchanged for free during weekdays, after that limit and during weekends it's 1%. You can also hold GBP in app.

Interesting option. $2K per month free free isn't that useful if you're travelling, but the fees after that are comparable with wise. Paying GBP4 / 8 per month gives you higher or no limit on that fee free transfer but it's an annual plan you can't pay monthly.

All in all Revolut seems to have some benefits but they come at the expense of complexity.

SpartanVXL

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#3254658 30-Jun-2024 12:15

It’s not just the fees for wise, it’s their exchange rate. Check and compare against your credit card provider.

timmmay

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#3254663 30-Jun-2024 12:24

Looks like wise gives about 2% better rates than our bank as well as lower fees. Thanks :)

MartinGZ

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#3255468 2-Jul-2024 11:30

Hi timmmay,

We had 2 months in Europe last year, and travel to the UK every couple of years. Three things in the armoury:

Wise Card (physical, have since added it to Google Pay)
GiffGaff UK sim card (I ordered one through a UK friend - you would need to check on the EU roaming, it was available, but things change on that front.)
Data eSim from Airalo for the EU and Switz.
And our NZ credit cards, of course.

At the time, all these were the best value, things may have changed. Cash was hardly every used, but for some areas (like very rural Poland) cash is more likely.

The great thing about the Wise card is you can load it with as little or much as you want to cover things like hotel holds. I you are concerned about that, it is cash as @nztim said, you can limit the amount that is available by splitting it between "jars" - a bit like having current and savings accounts. You can also increase and decrease the spending limit as you see fit using the app, e.g. if you have big bills to pay. The flexibility of the app is huge and leaves anything e.g. Kiwibank, does for dead. All our initial hotel bookings were done before we left using our bank credit card as guarantee, but I actually changed all those to Wise as it was quite a bit cheaper, more than your 0.5% 😀.

In all these things, it is important to have backup plans if things go wrong and this applies equally to credit cards as well as things like Wise. If you happen on the unlikely case of losing both your cards and phone, it is very, very difficult to recover/stop accounts. I ended up carrying a second old phone with the appropriate apps, but some of the issues were in this thread.

timmmay

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#3255631 2-Jul-2024 17:08

Thanks @MartinGZ that's super useful. Good call on losing your phone / wallet, that would be a problem. We have family over there probably not insurmountable, but I might put an old phone into my big bag just in case.

Wise does seem like a wise choice. Having the spending limit and "jars" feature looks great. I'll check the rates, we might end up paying with that card instead of the NZ bank if there's a good advantage. Right now the difference in exchange rate seems minimal. Loading the card when the exchange rate is better might help - looks like it's not quite so good right now compared with 6 months ago, but it's not a big difference.

GiffGaff looks pretty good, and roaming anywhere in Europe looks fine. Lyca Mobile looks to be a bit cheaper, but price isn't the main factor. I'll look into both.

phrozenpenguin

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#3255779 2-Jul-2024 22:46

Earlier this year we used https://www.spusu.co.uk for eSIM and it worked well in UK and Europe including France. Signup, setup, cancellation were all smooth, which has not always been my experience with other eSIM providers.

We use Wise regularly anyway so had Wise card and that worked well. I've had a mediocre experience with Revolut and would recommend Wise over Revolut for that reason, but I haven't had reason to look harder as Wise does what I need.

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timmmay

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#3270914 12-Aug-2024 20:55

Sanity check please.... never used an esim.

I'll buy a giffgaf esim 25GB data only plan from my Pixel 8 plus a 15GB plan with a phone number from my wife's Samsung S22 a few days before we leave for the UK. We'll activate both using the GiffGaff app when we get into Heathrow, as I believe activation only works once you can connect to the network. We'll use them for a few weeks in the UK, then we'll use the up to 5GB roaming in France. If we run out of data in France we'll get Nomad France only day plan for however many days we need, using free hotel Wifi. If we need data in Singapore on the way there's probably free WiFi.

Sound right?

MartinGZ

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#3270974 13-Aug-2024 10:52

@timmmay. You may not be eligible to use EU roaming Everything you need to know about roaming in the EU | giffgaff.

I've had a Giff Gaff SIM for years, but it had to be sent to a UK address. There were no eSIMs when I bought it. But it gets used regularly by family and friends when they travel to the UK, so I don't have problems keeping it active. It will expire after 6 months unless it is used, and needs use in the UK to get the EU roaming back.

Given that you have to show UK residency for a standard SIM, it may be that you have to with an eSIM - I don't know though.

Other than those issues, that is how I use my standard Giff Gaff SIM.

It is advisable to use a VPN through the UK when dealing with the Giff Gaff website. Their expectation is that you will be resident in the UK, and frequently things like payment will not complete if you herald from NZ.

On eSIMs in general, my experience is that they are not necessarily straight forward to load. I've only experience of Airalo, but it seems that it may depend on the country you buy. E.g. the Oz eSIM was straight forward and simple, the EU and Switz less so. My guess is it depends on the network they are connected to and how advanced they are with implementing eSIMs. I'd advise you to try one out before you go. Buy a cheap NZ eSIM and run it for a week.

Edit: small corrections.

noroad

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#3271037 13-Aug-2024 11:48

I'm trying Airalo e-sim next month in the US, it all seems pretty easy and affordable. The wife's phone can't take e-sim so have a physical roaming sim from https://nz.simcorner.com/ (arrives in about 3 days)

shk292

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#3271074 13-Aug-2024 13:22

I tried to use giffgaff when visiting UK recently but couldn't get their website to accept payment, even with a UK credit card. I ended up buying a vodafone UK esim online and using that, which was a very quick and easy process. But you don't get free EU roaming with VF.

noroad

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#3271082 13-Aug-2024 13:37

shk292: I tried to use giffgaff when visiting UK recently but couldn't get their website to accept payment, even with a UK credit card. I ended up buying a vodafone UK esim online and using that, which was a very quick and easy process. But you don't get free EU roaming with VF.

The Airalo app takes care of all of the payment issues.

timmmay

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#3271093 13-Aug-2024 13:59

Thanks for the additional thoughts all, they're appreciated. @MartinGZ that's very helpful. This page suggests that GiffGaff want UK visitors to use their network, but the experience of @shk292 contradicts that. My sister in law uses GiffGaff, but we won't be seeing her until about 5 days into our stay so that's not convenient.

Digital Nomad rates better than Airalo generally, and the prices seem better as well. Given they're designed for travelers it might be a better option, get one for the UK, then once for France - very slightly more expensive but compared with the cost of the trip it doesn't matter at all.

I'll look into this some more tonight. More opinions and experiences are welcome :)

MartinGZ

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#3271117 13-Aug-2024 15:05

@timmay. Good to see that link for overseas visitors, but loads of contradictory info on their website. I see they still post the SIM card out, and say 5 days to rest of world. Ha! Allow at least 2 weeks from the UK, as I can't see it being couriered out.

@timmmay and @shk292. I had this same problem with payments (and the website being slow to load) when browsing from NZ. Like I say above, it all seemed to work fine when I set a VPN to London. I suppose they have their reasons for making life difficult for customers! They do accept paypal, and of course you could use your Wise card 😀.

panther2

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#3271129 13-Aug-2024 15:28

Used wise in Europe no problem.

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