O2 Crazy Roaming Charges

[SimonAd]

I’m fortunate enough to be on holiday in the Seychelles. I realised this is out of the international roaming area for O2 but when I arrived I received a text saying it was £7 per mb!

There were no local SIMs at the airport and I had to get the hire car to the hotel so enabled roaming for the half an hour journey, and now have a bill for £143 for the journey.

I’ve now spoken to other people here who happen to be on cheap Vodafone contracts, and they get 12p per mb rate here! Thats over 1500% more...

Am I missing som o2 seem to rip you off as soon as they are not controlled by EU laws ?

[jonsie]

Those are crippling charges and O2 are really over the top @SimonAd  charging £7.00/MB but they seem happy to mug their customers outside the EU.

I'm not sure even if O2 Travel Extra covers the Seychelles . A local sim is always best and its surprising they weren't available at the airport.

It leaves a very sour taste at the start of your holiday  

[Bambino]

@SimonAd  We all here agree that O2's roaming charges are criminal, but if you needed your maps to navigate from the airport to the hotel, turning on your data and roaming was totally unnecessary, and you wasted your money. Here's how to use Google Maps without using data. This has been known for years. The first link is for Android phones, the second iPhones: 

https://support.google.com/maps/answer/6291838?co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid&hl=en 

https://support.google.com/maps/answer/6291838?co=GENIE.Platform%3DiOS&hl=en

[SimonAd]

I do have the travel bolt on but you’re correct it doesn’t cover Seychelles. I think the best option is to change to Vodafone. We use them at work and the signal is as good as o2. If they can charge a fraction then it can’t be what C&W or Airtel charge them - so its clearly a cynical money grab off their customers.

Anyway a bit of a sour taste as you say, but I’ll put it down as a lesson learn’t and put it behind me. The local Airtel SIM gives me 1.5gb for the same price o2 charge for 3mb....

[SimonAd]

Thank you for that. To be honest its worse than that as I had Sygic installed on my phone with the offline maps loaded, so I really am kicking myself for being such an idiot. My only excuse is that I didn’t sleep on the plane and had been up for more than 24 hours and clearly not thinking straight. I even read the text saying that it was £7 / mb but it just didn’t sink in ...

Lesson learnt!

[jonsie]

For sure, don't let it spoil your holiday in the fabulous Seychelles. I would love to go back there 

[davethorp]

In fairness to O2 here, I’ve just done a check of the major players and their rates for The Seychelles are about in line with everyone else bar vodafone

Three charge £6 per MB

EE charge £36 per day for an add on with a massive 5MB of data (so £7.20 per MB)

Virgin charge an eye watering £12.50 per MB

As others have advised local sims can be the way to go or failing that shop around the UK networks before you travel and pick the cheapest which is what I’ll be doing when I go on holiday next year

[SimonAd]

Thanks all ... interesting that Vodafone are the exception. I’ll definitely check data rates for any countries I’m likely to travel to before signing my next contract. If everyone does that the prices can only come down....