Roaming on O2 - All you need to know

[Chris_K]

For many of us, we've not had a holiday outside the UK for a couple of years now - or possibly even longer. In that time a lot has changed, but the good news is that O2 is the only major network that isn't bringing back EU roaming charges. Up to 25GB.

So, if you're thinking of going on holiday or a trip to one of our Europe Zone destinations, you'll be able to roam freely just like if you were at home. This thread will give you all the info you need to ensure you're fully informed on allowances, costs, options, and what to expect when you travel abroad, even if it's outside of Europe.

Oct 2022 Update: We have a new roaming page here that makes it easier than ever to check your destination to see if O2 Travel is available or to check costs for roaming in that country. Check it out here.

Spoiler

Great news! We cover roaming in our Europe Zone as part of our Tariffs. So your data, minutes and text allowances will work in our Europe Zone, just like they do at home.

Destinations included in our Europe Zone
The below is for reference only, and is correct as of 16 March 2022. Please refer to our website for the most up-to-date list.

Spoiler

Austria	Azores	Belgium
Bulgaria	Canary Islands	Croatia
Cyprus*	Czech Republic	Denmark
Estonia	Finland	France
French Guiana	Germany	Gibraltar
Greece	Guadeloupe	Guernsey
Hungary	Iceland	Ireland
Isle of Man	Italy	Jersey
Latvia	Liechtenstein	Lithuania
Luxembourg	Madeira	Malta
Martinique	Mayotte	Monaco
Netherlands	Norway	Poland
Portugal	Reunion	Romania
Saint Barthelemy	Saint Martin	San Marino
Slovakia	Slovenia	Spain
Sweden	Switzerland	United Kingdom
Vatican City

* Not including Northern Cyprus

Tariffs with more than 25GB of monthly data
If your UK monthly data allowance is over 25GB, you’ll have a Roaming Limit of 25GB when roaming in our Europe Zone. This means you can use up to 25GB of your allowance at no extra cost- we’ll text you if you’re getting close to the limit, and again if you reach it. You can still use data if you reach our Roaming Limit, but you’ll be charged £3.50/GB.

These charges will apply until the following (depending on which is earliest);

• You use up your monthly UK data allowance**
• You return to the UK
• You reach your next bill cycle

**If you use all your UK data allowance when roaming outside the UK, you’ll need to buy a data Bolt On if you want to keep using data. See our data Bolt Ons here.

Tariffs with 25GB or less of monthly data
These tariffs are not subject to our Roaming Limit of 25GB. But if you use all your UK data allowance when roaming outside in the UK, you’ll need to buy a data Bolt On if you want to keep using data. See our data Bolt Ons here. 

Spoiler

We want going on holidays or roaming abroad to be as stress-free as possible, but we do have some rules in place to prevent abuse and ensure as many of our customers can enjoy uninterrupted access while abroad as possible.

Permanent Roaming

Using our services in our Europe Zone for more than 63 days in any four-month period is what we consider to be unfair use. If you do this we’ll send you a fair usage notification by text. If you continue to use these services after we’ve notified you, we’ll apply surcharges for further usage that we recognise as overage.

These surcharges are £3.50 per GB for data, 3.3p per minute for calls and 1p per text. The surcharges will appear on your next month’s bill. We’ll stop applying surcharges to your European Zone usage once the majority of your usage over the previous four months has been in the UK.

What options do I have?

You can continue to use your phone in our Europe Zone, but you should be aware that usage will be charged at the rates given above. For example, if you use 1GB of data and 100 texts after receiving the notification, you’ll be charged an extra £4.50 - that’s £3.50 for the data and £1 for the texts.

If you find yourself living in the EU for a long period of time, it may be more cost-effective for you to buy a local sim card or take out a contract with a local network.

If this has happened to you and you think it might be a mistake, call 202 from your mobile or 0344 809 0202 from any other phone.

Use of our services in our Europe Zone is subject to our fair usage policy.

What's not included?

• Making calls or sending texts from the UK, to countries outside of the UK.
• Making calls or sending texts to premium rate numbers, directory service numbers and some non-geographic numbers (which can vary over time). Find out more
• Mobile broadband tariffs, as they can only be used in the UK.

Spoiler

Good news, our O2 Travel Inclusive Zone Bolt On is now included with selected O2 Refresh tariffs over 90GB and SIM only tariffs over 100GB. You can also select the O2 Travel Inclusive Zone Bolt On as your Extra if your O2 Refresh tariff is between 30GB and 89GB.

With our O2 Travel Inclusive Zone Bolt On, you get a daily allowance of 120 calls, 120 minutes and data roaming in 27 additional destinations (our Inclusive Zone) including USA, Australia and New Zealand. You you can find all of the the included destinations here.

Destinations included in our Travel Inclusive Zone
The below is for reference only, and is correct as of 16 March 2022. Please refer to our website for the most up-to-date list.

Spoiler

Argentina	Honduras
Australia	Madagascar
Botswana	Mexico
Canada	Myanmar
Chile	New Zealand
Colombia	Nicaragua
Costa Rica	Panama
Ecuador	Paraguay
El Salvador	Peru
Greenland	Rwanda
Guatemala	United States
Guinea	Uruguay
Guyana	Venezuela
Yemen

If you go over your allowance, you’ll pay the standard international roaming rates for the country you’re roaming in. See rates for your destination

Calling from the USA

From 2023, you’ll be unable to use your UK mobile phone to make regular calls when visiting the USA because of changes to their mobile networks. However, you’ll be able to use your phone to make calls using the 4G network – provided you have a compatible phone.

Follow the steps listed here to check whether your phone is compatible, or you can find a list of compatible devices if you go here and click the link shown in the screenshot below the most up-to-date compatibility list.

If the device you have isn't compatible with 4G roaming, then you will be unable to make and receive calls when you're roaming in the USA. This down to USA network technology changes rather than anything on our side, or that O2 is in control of.

Spoiler

You can still get our full O2 Travel Bolt On for £6 a day in selected destinations. Your data allowance will reset at midnight every night and you will only be charged for the days you use it.

If you go over your O2 Travel daily 120 minute/text allowance, you will be charged standard rates. Cruise ship travel is not included in this Bolt On and your O2 Travel Bolt On cannot be used in the UK.

	To UK	To our Europe Zone	To Rest of World
From our Europe Zone	Included in your allowance	Included in your allowance	Making calls £1.79min Receiving calls free Sending texts 50p
From Rest of World	Making calls £2min Receiving calls £2min Sending texts 50p Using data £7.20/MB	Making calls £2min Receiving calls £2min Sending texts 50p Using data £7.20/MB	Making calls £2min Receiving calls £2min Sending texts 50p Using data £7.20/MB

Spoiler

If you're travelling in our Europe Zone, use your phone like you do at home, at no extra cost, on Pay As You Go plans. There are over 40 countries included in our Europe Zone. When travelling within any of these countries, you can make calls and texts like you would in the UK. You can also receive calls and texts at no extra cost.

Calling or texting premium rate, directory service and some non-geographical numbers will incur additional charges. If you are using your Pay As You Go or Big Bundle plan abroad for an extended period, beyond a holiday or short break, you could be charged or suspended from your service.

If you're travelling to Monaco, Jersey, Isle of Man, Guernsey or Switzerland (MJIGS, in the table below), you can stay connected with O2 Travel Pay As You Go. For £1.99 a day, you'll get 100MB data. Calls back to the UK and within these five countries cost 4p a minute. Texts sent to the UK and the five countries included cost 1p, but are free to receive.

	To UK	To Europe Zone	To MJIGS 1	To ROW 2
From Europe Zone	RLH	RLH	4p/min (MO) 1p/text	£1.79/min (MO) 25p/text
From MJIGS	4p/min (MO) 1p/text	4p/min (MO) 1p/text	4p/min (MO) 1p/text	£1.79/min (MO) 25p/text
From ROW	£2.00/min (MO/MT) 50p/text £7.20/MB (CUK)	£2.00/min (MO/MT) 50p/text £7.20/MB (CUK)	£2.00/min (MO/MT) 50p/text £7.20/MB (CUK)	£2.00/min (MO/MT) 50p/text £7.20/MB (CUK)

1 MJIGS = Monaco, Jersey, Isle of Man, Guernsey or Switzerland
2 ROW = Rest of the World

Spoiler

We know there's a lot of information covered above, so we have this section that acts as a sort of summary, along with some useful tips and tricks you should check before leaving the UK.

• Check your destination: We have a few different options so it's important to know in advance if your destination is included in our Europe Zone roaming, Inclusive Zone, O2 Travel, or standard roaming, so you can review your options and any application costs you may incur
• Check your tariff: If your destination isn't in our Europe Zone or Travel Inclusive Zone, don’t worry. Make sure you opt in to O2 Travel which for many destinations outside of these, will help lower the cost. Check out which countries are included here.
• Touch down: When you arrive and turn your phone on, you should get a message that welcomes you and outlines applicable roaming costs. If your phone doesn't connect to a network automatically, you may have your phone manually set to O2 UK. To change this, open your phone settings, find your network selection mode, and set this to automatic.
• O2 Travel & O2 Travel Inclusive: These bolt-ons are activated by sending a text, making or receiving a call or by using data. Even if you just send one SMS or open an app that uses your mobile data, this will trigger the activation for that day – it will then provide you with O2 Travel allowances up to midnight that day.
• O2 Travel Inclusive: With this, you will get 120 minutes, 120 texts and data for the day. This can be activated through the My O2 app. You can manage your usage via the My O2 app or website.
• Standard Roaming rates: If you use up your daily allowance or are visiting a country that isn’t supported then you will be charged our standard roaming rates, which you can find covered in the sections above. If you don’t want to incur any such charges, you can turn your data roaming off in your phone settings. It’s always advisable to do this before you leave the UK.
• Text messages on your bill: If you see +447802000332 on your bill then don’t worry - this is the O2 Message centre number and is shown on your bill when sending messages whilst abroad
• Data Roaming Cap: You can add on a data roaming cap so that you can limit the amount you can spend. The limit is set to £120 and if removed, you can go over this. There is also a lower limit of £51.50 that is automatically applied, unless this has been requested to be removed.
• Forbidden Networks: If you're struggling to connect to any of the roaming networks showing as available, another option is to try and manually connect to any networks showing as forbidden.

If for any reason you're unclear or unsure about any of the above, just let us know or get in touch with us over the phone, or you can also contact us on our Facebook, Twitter or Instagram page and we'd be happy to help.

Bon Voyage! 🏖

[Zoma]

It's easy not to bring back Roaming charges because at least in France O2 only give 3g which is obsolete and useless. 

[Cleoriff]

@Zoma 

Some things to try:

          * Manually search for another network

          * If you have an iPhone change your data APN to "mobile.o2.co.uk"

           * Try toggling Airplane mode on/off (it often helps kickstart things)

           * Drop down to 3G and see if that helps.

           * Contact O2 to see if there are any roaming bars on the account

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.

Or call 0800 032 1402 via Skype Guide: A Guide to Skype

[pgn]

One thing overlooked in the advice we commonly offer here is which countries in Europe have switched off, like Germany, the 3G service completely - this map may help:

I will see if there is a clearer map to add in to the Roaming Megaguide.

[DavidO1]

I can't seem to find any information regarding the Data Roaming Zone 1 bolt-on. I'm off to OZ/NZ for 8 weeks and need calls & texts and modest data for that period. I'm pay monthly on less than 30GB data and so don't qualify for the Travel Inclusive Zone Bolt On. The daily roaming charge of £6 would work out at  £336!

[MI5]

@DavidO1 

That is correct if you used it every day.

Get a local sim or use wifi where possible.

[DavidO1]

Thanks but what does the Data Roaming Zone 1 bolt-on include?

[Cleoriff]

Hi @DavidO1 

If you aren't eligible for the Travel Inclusive Bolt on, then your other option is O2 Travel

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

However, youonly pay £6.00 for THE DAYS YOU USE IT.

Wifi is plentiful, in hotels, cafes, restaurants, bars and apartments, so if you use that you won't be charged. Also a local pay as you go sim from the two countries you are visiting, will also reduce costs.

Remember to get the O2 Travel bolt on at least 3 days before you travel.

[MI5]

@DavidO1 

You’ll get a daily allowance of 120 minutes, texts and data when you roam in our O2 Travel  Zone. There’s no cap on data, but we’ll manage traffic and may need to slow down speeds depending on usage, and all allowances are subject to our Fair Usage policy. Calls and texts to premium rate numbers and other special numbers are not included.    

[DavidO1]

Thanks for replies. However, I'm not eligible for the Travel Inclusive Bolt-on, which I assume MI5 is referring to. Hence my interest in the "Data Roaming Zone 1" bolt-on which is available in 100MB, 500MB or 1GB options. I gather that OZ/NZ are Zone 1, and I assume you get a data allowance as stated. But does this include calls/texts? And can it be used without any other bolt-ons?

[Cleoriff]

@DavidO1 

My post is regarding O2 TRAVEL. (Not O2 Travel Inclusive) Please read the link I provided in my first post.

That will tell you everything you need to know about O2 Travel. O2 do not refer to it as Zone 1.

It can be used without any other bolt ons