# Going to Edinburgh and London in September - should I use Verizon cell phone plan?



## glenmore (Jul 21, 2017)

Have been reading through the forums here but am still a bit confused.

Is it ok to take my iphone 7 and iphone 7 plus and use Verizon $10/day plan for use in Edinburgh and London?

Just want the phone mainly for photos, texting and calls within the UK (if there is a change of plans for car pickup, or question for hotel, etc.)

Thanks for any help you can give me.


----------



## Deb from NC (Jul 21, 2017)

glenmore said:


> Have been reading through the forums here but am still a bit confused.
> 
> Is it ok to take my iphone 7 and iphone 7 plus and use Verizon $10/day plan for use in Edinburgh and London?
> 
> ...



We just got back from England and used a Verizon plan that gave us 100 minutes of cell phone use, 100 texts ( but texts between iPhones weren't counted against you)
and 1 gig of data ( I think) for $ 40 for 1 month.  We were in England 2 weeks and went $ 25 over on the data, but it was still less expensive for us than their $10 a day plan.  You might want to ask them about it...depending on how much you plan to use your phone it might be a better deal for you.


----------



## Glynda (Jul 21, 2017)

We just got back from England Monday. I have the Verizon $10 per day plan and it didn't work well for me. I was told that I would get a notice when the 24 hours began and 1 hour before it expired. But I never got a notice that it began. Then, thinking I had not used it, I would get a notice that it would expire in 1 hour!  It seems that when I turned on my phone and signed in to free hotel wifi, my iPhone would start pulling something or another during the seconds before I could connect to the wifi. Had I received a starting notice, I would have used the phone liberally during that 24 hour period!  I ended up paying for about 7 days. Apparently I didn't understand how to set up the phone so that I could use free wifi and not cellular. Sigh.


----------



## glenmore (Jul 21, 2017)

Appreciate the replies!


----------



## Tamino (Jul 26, 2017)

The T Mobile plan of free data and $0.20 per minute calls to the US works very well.  I may not be the only one who thinks that $10 per day is outrageous.  Consider purchasing an inexpensive pre paid SIM such as those offered by Lebara.  You will be able to keep in contact and make local for a lot less overall expense.


----------



## LisaH (Jul 26, 2017)

Yep. T-mobile rocks. We switched from AT&T to T-Mobile last year just for international travel.


----------



## VacationForever (Jul 26, 2017)

Glynda said:


> We just got back from England Monday. I have the Verizon $10 per day plan and it didn't work well for me. I was told that I would get a notice when the 24 hours began and 1 hour before it expired. But I never got a notice that it began. Then, thinking I had not used it, I would get a notice that it would expire in 1 hour!  It seems that when I turned on my phone and signed in to free hotel wifi, my iPhone would start pulling something or another during the seconds before I could connect to the wifi. Had I received a starting notice, I would have used the phone liberally during that 24 hour period!  I ended up paying for about 7 days. Apparently I didn't understand how to set up the phone so that I could use free wifi and not cellular. Sigh.



I learned it the hard way too. In future, step one, turn off data roaming, step 2, turn on airplane mode.  I had turned on airplane mode but could not turn data roaming off after that.  It is the data roaming that is on that makes the network think that your phone is using the network and Verizon will charge $10 per day.


----------



## Glynda (Jul 26, 2017)

VacationForever said:


> I learned it the hard way too. In future, step one, turn off data roaming, step 2, turn on airplane mode. I had turned on airplane mode but could not turn data roaming off after that. It is the data roaming that is on that makes the network think that your phone is using the network and Verizon will charge $10 per day.



Thanks! It was a three week trip and I figured it out after the first week in London!  I thought about complaining to Verizon because I did not get a notice that my 24 hours had begun and I assume that they could easily see that I had not made calls, texts and the data was limited.  But alas, I didn't.  I just paid and learned my lesson.  I would add to your steps that in order to use free wifi, after turning on Airplane Mode you then have to go to settings and turn wifi on individually. Our teenaged granddaughter learned on the trip too that using the paid Celebrity ship's wifi required her to go back to Safari and log out of it. Just turning off her phone or turning on Airplane Mode did not log her out and she lost a lot of her minutes.  She's cute; she said, "Isn't free Wifi a basic human right?"


----------



## glenmore (Jul 26, 2017)

So, is the advice to buy a inexpensive unlocked phone on eBay and buy a SIM card in Edinburgh??


I have Verizon so cannot use T-mobile--correctly?  Where I live, Verizon works the best


----------



## VacationForever (Jul 26, 2017)

Glynda said:


> Thanks! It was a three week trip and I figured it out after the first week in London!  I thought about complaining to Verizon because I did not get a notice that my 24 hours had begun and I assume that they could easily see that I had not made calls, texts and the data was limited.  But alas, I didn't.  I just paid and learned my lesson.  I would add to your steps that in order to use free wifi, after turning on Airplane Mode you then have to go to settings and turn wifi on individually. Our teenaged granddaughter learned on the trip too that using the paid Celebrity ship's wifi required her to go back to Safari and log out of it. Just turning off her phone or turning on Airplane Mode did not log her out and she lost a lot of her minutes.  She's cute; she said, "Isn't free Wifi a basic human right?"


Ditto.  We learned it the hard way when we were on Celebrity in April and May of this year.  But we do think Verizon's $10 a day is really cost effective.


----------



## pwrshift (Aug 15, 2017)

Suggest you message jme (Marty) about your trip...he was really into Scotland.

Brian


----------



## lorenmd (Sep 4, 2017)

my daughter is there now for three months.  she got a Sim card once she arrived for her Verizon iPhone and it works great.  she calls me on WhatsApp mostly though and text on wifi but for other times she bought 6 GB data/month unlimited texting and they gave her a British cell phone number. was way cheaper than Verizon.  it's what the universities have their students get when they do study abroad


----------



## glenmore (Sep 7, 2017)

I talked to Verizon today. The Travel Pass plan starts on the day you text, make a call or use wifi (out of the country) and is good for 24 hours straight. You don't get an email when you start (I was told) but should get one an hour before your 24 hours are up. Will set a reminder on phone to remind me!

Keep it in airplane mode until you want/need to use it

My husband suggested taking our Kindles for hotel wifi to surf, check email etc. That should cut out the issue of being charged during the moments connecting to hotel wifi

Will see how it goes!


----------



## tashamen (Sep 8, 2017)

LisaH said:


> Yep. T-mobile rocks. We switched from AT&T to T-Mobile last year just for international travel.



We also switched (but from US Cellular) to T-Mobile and their $60 unlimited plan for 2 lines for those 55 and over.  We're going to Edinburgh next month and expect our phones will work fine.


----------



## JudyH (Sep 9, 2017)

All right folks, this is easy.  Go to a local phone store, get a SIM card for your phone.  All Verizon Iphones are unlocked.  Have the store set up the phone.  I get a one month prepaid card, with 2-4 GB of data.  I mostly care about data, for google maps, trip advisor restaurants, local info.  In United Kingdom, I got the Three sim card.  The stores are all over.  Look for them and get some addresses before you leave the US.

Now, I don't call home hardly at all, or text home.  Some local sim cards don't let the 30 day prepaid plan call the US or out of the country.  That's not important to me cause I have Plan B .  I have a MOBAL flip phone that I bought years ago.  The company is in the US.  The phone has a UK sim card and can be used all over the world, except the US.  They keep my CC on file and it is about $1.50 a minute to call US.  I only use it for emergencies, but I leave it turned on all the time while traveling in case someone from the US tries to call me..my family has the #  www.Mobal.com

Like an above caller, I could not get Verizon International to work even though I had made all the arrangements with them ahead.  The bank had sent me a fraud alert and said to call them.  So I had to use the MOBAL phone for this.


----------



## WinniWoman (Sep 9, 2017)

JudyH said:


> All right folks, this is easy.  Go to a local phone store, get a SIM card for your phone.  All Verizon Iphones are unlocked.  Have the store set up the phone.  I get a one month prepaid card, with 2-4 GB of data.  I mostly care about data, for google maps, trip advisor restaurants, local info.  In United Kingdom, I got the Three sim card.  The stores are all over.  Look for them and get some addresses before you leave the US.
> 
> Now, I don't call home hardly at all, or text home.  Some local sim cards don't let the 30 day prepaid plan call the US or out of the country.  That's not important to me cause I have Plan B .  I have a MOBAL flip phone that I bought years ago.  The company is in the US.  The phone has a UK sim card and can be used all over the world, except the US.  They keep my CC on file and it is about $1.50 a minute to call US.  I only use it for emergencies, but I leave it turned on all the time while traveling in case someone from the US tries to call me..my family has the #  www.Mobal.com
> 
> Like an above caller, I could not get Verizon International to work even though I had made all the arrangements with them ahead.  The bank had sent me a fraud alert and said to call them.  So I had to use the MOBAL phone for this.



We have the MOBAL flip phone as well and used it in Scotland a few times with no issues.


----------



## isisdave (Sep 10, 2017)

If the family has your MOBAL number, you can tell them to try you first on Viber or Skype or WhatsApp or FaceTime or ... all data apps.

Some folks buy a cheap non-smart phone; when you put the new SIM for EE into your main phone, you can put your US one into the cheap phone and check it occasionally. There are dual-SIM phones too; BLU makes a lot of them. Until recently there wasn't free international roaming in the EU so people who were frequently in two countries would use these.

One problem I discovered with the approach of keeping your US phone active: I live in Pacific Time. Friends who don't know you're 8 hours later ... and of course junk callers ... will call in the middle of your night.  We shut off the ringer at bedtime. There isn't any problem we can solve from here better than they can solve from there.


----------



## bevans (Sep 10, 2017)

My wife and I are in Europe for two months and bought a BLU smart phone from Mobal and it works great. At times the GPS in the Peugeot we rented does not do well when we get close to our destination and we use the BLU to get us the final distance. I wondered if we can use this phone with our Verizon service when we get home if we get a USA sim. My wife lost her I Phone so when we get home we either have to get another Verizon phone or perhaps use the BLU? Curt


----------



## Bill4728 (Sep 12, 2017)

I sure like the idea of using a non phone to surf the web ( kindle or Ipad)

We took a completed different approach to calling in the UK  we brought our magicJack  it allows calls over wifi  and not use our cell's data


----------



## isisdave (Sep 14, 2017)

Magic Jack also has an app for your phone or other device that lets you make calls over wifi without actually connecting the MJ device. 

After one or two times where we couldn't access the router to plug in the MJ, we mostly use this approach now (although we do also have a wifi bridge that lets us get a physical Ethernet connection from wifi signal).  If you use the plug-in MJ, what phone do you use with it?


----------



## SmithOp (Sep 14, 2017)

bevans said:


> My wife and I are in Europe for two months and bought a BLU smart phone from Mobal and it works great. At times the GPS in the Peugeot we rented does not do well when we get close to our destination and we use the BLU to get us the final distance. I wondered if we can use this phone with our Verizon service when we get home if we get a USA sim. My wife lost her I Phone so when we get home we either have to get another Verizon phone or perhaps use the BLU? Curt



I have a BLU phone and they are unlocked so you can use them on many different providers by just buying a new SIM.

I use mine when I go to UK with EE SIM and a pay as you go plan.  Its easy to top up minutes/data at any convenience store with the TopUp sign.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


----------



## ivorius007 (Sep 27, 2017)

I have an unlocked phone and have used a Lebara SIM which gives me a local phone number.  I didn't realize there was a difference in plans but my first visit the SIM came with a monthly plan which was great, I didn't run out of minutes or data.  This last time I went to a convenience store and was sold the Pay As YOu Go Plan which wasn't so good--I kept having to top it up with very little use time.  Next time I plan to set it up online before I go an pick the plan that will work best for my needs.
I found Lebara customer service to be quite helpful.


----------



## Ken555 (Sep 27, 2017)

You will find a 3UK (and perhaps other) prepaid SIM cards in a vending machine at Heathrow and other UK airports. You may also get free SIM cards from their stores. Now that I have one I just login and add credit to my account. It's been very helpful for me, since it may be used in many countries. I pay £25 for unlimited data for a month in the U.K. (or 12GB in their other covered countries). You may also get a plan that includes voice calls if needed. 

I forward my US mobile number to my office VoIP system, which I may access from my phone. You may use google voice or one of any number of free or low cost services instead. 

T-Mobile's international fees are reasonable but there are some gotchas. For instance, a family member is traveling Europe right now with a T-Mobile phone and he receives numerous marketing and other calls. Even at just one minute per incoming call, T-Mobile charges $0.20. It's only been a couple of weeks and his bill is already at $100 for these types of calls. I remove my T-Mobile sim as soon as my plane leaves the US.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


----------



## vkrn (Sep 27, 2017)

I just got back from there and everyone over there says to get a SIM card when you get there. They are available everywhere. Just my 2¢.


----------



## glenmore (Oct 4, 2017)

As a follow-up--we are back from Edinburgh and London--GREAT trip! Verizon plan worked as advertised.

Each time I used my wifi, made a call or sent a text I started the 24-hour window. I always got a text from Verizon telling me when I had an hour left on my 24-hour time period

Worked fine for us---


----------



## tashamen (Oct 5, 2017)

isisdave said:


> If the family has your MOBAL number, you can tell them to try you first on Viber or Skype or WhatsApp or FaceTime or ... all data apps.



We also downloaded WhatsApp on our phones and have been able to communicate with our friends and family in Scotland and Finland for free, so expect to use that in Scotland as well.  We leave two weeks from today!


----------



## lorenmd (Nov 23, 2017)

i'm here now for two weeks and i just had them put an EE sim card in my iphone and it was about 30 pounds for 5 GB and 1000 texts and plenty of phone calls.  so way cheaper and easier than the verizon plan.  you can do it right at the airport and it takes about 5 minutes.


----------

