O2 Roaming charges

PAH1 — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 18:42:13 GMT

I have just returned from a 2-week trip to Kenya and have received a bill of £127 from O2 due to roaming charges. I purchased an e-sim for the trip, and was not expecting to pay O2 travel charges (£7 per day, which massively exceeds standard costs of an e-sim). When I arrived in Kenya, I received a text message from O2 saying "Welcome to KENYA. If you want to use data while you are here, you will need to by an O2 Zone 3 bolt on. See our pricing here...". I did not of course purchase the bolt on as I already had an e-sim. This text message led me to believe that O2 data would not be made available to me. I have never signed up to O2 travel, and I feel its unfair that this automatically gets activated, and ridiculous charges applied, when the customer never wanted or requested this service.

Re: O2 Roaming charges

Enlli — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 19:16:29 GMT

Cant see how an eSIM makes any difference. It is just an electronic version of a normal SIM and you may be Glad you had travel or that bill would be a lot larger

https://www.o2.co.uk/international/using-your-phone-abroad

Seems you confused a standard network eSIM with one of the Travel eSIMs offered by various companies

An expensive mistake and a learning experience

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O2 Roaming charges

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