Going to the UK on holiday and will want to text home

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Shadbolt

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#225782 5-Dec-2017 15:28

My wife is going to the UK for a month, soon. She has a dumbphone (she hates smartphones) with a Vodafone prepay SIM, and pays $19 a month, I think it is.

When she's in the UK, all she'll want to use her phone for is to send and receive texts to/from me, and accept calls from me.

What's the most cost-effective way to go - should she:

- buy a UK SIM and keep topping up prepay credit on that?

- convert to on-account here, and use that for roaming in the UK?

- keep her present SIM, stay prepay, and I just chuck a wodge of credit on it to pay for her texting from abroad?

Thoughts please, gang.

-s

Linux

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#1913401 5-Dec-2017 16:00

Log into the Vodafone NZ site when away and use Free2txt

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jonb

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#1913416 5-Dec-2017 16:21

You can get a giffgaff SIM card delivered to your address in NZ. Can get it setup before you go so it activates when it is put in the phone in UK.

wellygary

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#1913736 6-Dec-2017 09:59

EE (was T-Mobile and Orange) have a £10 international PAYGO sim that includes 150 texts to NZ, ( also 150mins of calling and 500MB data,) they also have a £15 version with higher allowances,

https://shop.ee.co.uk/international/pay-as-you-go-international-sim

Shadbolt

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#1913839 6-Dec-2017 13:35

Thanks for the excellent suggestions, folks. All ideas that I had never thought of. I'll have a careful look at each one in turn.

Cheers!

-s

timmmay

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#1913841 6-Dec-2017 13:37

You can order a UK SIM card online, to deliver to wherever she's staying. Easy and works fine. Plenty of providers to choose from, Vodafone, O2, Three.

rayonline

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#1914365 7-Dec-2017 09:07

For a month's stay you're better to get a SIM over there or even use a computer if she has access to one and Skype for example (video/talk or just text).

Not that it is worth it for her, but roaming packs with Vodafone are for account plans only so higher monthly fee before you can get get the roaming pack. $5/day and I think Spark is $20/7 days - OK for short term transit visitors I suppose and if the area cannot get SIMs or if they are limited like in Japan or the likes of China how they have a Great Firewall and block a lot of stuff. Foreign SIMs are not blocked in China afaik so you can carry on using Google etc.