No roaming in St Lucia

[Guybrush80]

I got to St Lucia 3 days ago and I still haven't got a data connection working, despite activating the O2 Travel bolt on before leaving the UK. I'm using and eSim. I joined O2 on a 20GB contract 2 weeks ago and this is the worst possible way to start.

Called 202 5 times over the last 3 days and I've had:

Customer service person 1 saying that there was a block on my data, that he unblocked it but that I would have to wait 24 hours for that to take effect. Annoying but ok, let's go with it.

24 hours after still no data: I call 202 again and:

Customer service advisor number 2 has no idea that St Lucia is a country and insists that I just need to restart my phone and everything will magically work. Except I had already rebooted my phone probably a dozen times already. He doesn't have anything else to suggest so he ends the call. I reboot my phone again and of course no change.

Customer service advisor 3 says that she'll send me a reset message that will make my phone work. At my request, she also says that she'll email me the APN settings in case the reset message does not go through.

Obviously I didn't receive either the message or the email.

Called again today, customer service advisor 4 doesn't know of the existence of St Lucia either and says I should go to the phone settings, General and Reset. Whatever that may mean, obviously not having a clue. 

Am I missing something obvious here? All the O2 literature says that data roaming should work in St Lucia but it obviously doesn't for me. 

Posting on the off chance someone is able to help.

[madasaf1sh]

@Guybrush80 

To be honest I have in a travel agents and they don't know anywhere other than Benidorm.

Do you have any spend caps on your account at all.  As this can be a blocker. 

Also if on an iphone make sure the APN is set to mobile.o2.co.uk 

[Guybrush80]

@madasaf1sh that sounds very sad for a travel agent 😞

But yes, I do have a £20 spending cap, but I also have the 'O2 travel and higher data limit

In non-O2 countries' bolt on which comes with its own cap of £120 - which I presume should override the £20 one? 

In any case, I'm happy to remove the spend cap, but I don't see how to do that? The O2 literature seems to refer to using the live chat in the app, but when I try to start a conversation it says all agents are busy and won't let me...

[MI5]

@Guybrush80 

You can also try manually searching for a different network as some local networks may not support roaming data.

[Guybrush80]

Yeah there are two networks here, I tried registering with both but O2 will only let me register with one of them and fail altogether with the other 🤷‍

[MI5]

@Guybrush80 

O2 travel overrides any spend cap so that is irrelevant.

I does seem likely that there is a roaming bar of some sort on your account.

In view of the difficulties you have in contacting O2, If you message O2 on Facebook (https://o2uk.co/O2CFB) , Twitter (https://o2uk.co/O2CTW) or Instagram (https://o2uk.co/O2CIG) , they should be able to help you with this.

[Guybrush80]

Thank you @MI5 I'll try that as a last resort, but feeling very much like I made a mistake switching to O2 from Three 😞

[MI5]

Best of luck @Guybrush80 and let us know how you get on.

I remember from other posts that there have been issues with eSim and roaming, so be sure to ask O2 to carefully check your account settings.

[Guybrush80]

Thank you @MI5, I'll report on progress, if any. By the way I checked my SMS history and noticed that I got this message as soon as I landed here:

Welcome to SAINT LUCIA. You're on O2 Travel so keep your phone on and get 120 minutes, 120 texts and all the data you need for just 4.99 a day. You'll only be charged for the days you use it. This kicks in when you send a text, make a call or use data. Your daily charge applies from midnight to midnight based on the local time of the capital city in your chosen destination. For more info about O2 Travel, to see the standard roaming rates or opt out of the service visit www.o2.co.uk/travel, usage terms apply. If you have a Spend Cap, the price of this Bolt On will not be included within your Spend Cap. Call 112 for emergency services.

So that at least seems to be in order. Now to find someone technical enough to speak to!

[gmarkj]

Is it just data that is not working @Guybrush80 ?
Have you got an iPhone by any chance?

Try changing your APN to mobile.o2.co.uk as @madasaf1sh has advised...