Three UK announces £2 a day EU roaming charge

[HEXUS]

In 2019 it pledged to "save people £187m in mobile roaming charges after Brexit".

Read more.

[DanceswithUnix]

Will people be bothered about paying a daily fee like this for the benefits of roaming a few weeks every year?

Well some of us will be hacked off. I might have believed their slant on costs, but Three burned my good will when they increased pay as you go charges by about a magnitude and forced me to go contract. At the time I was actually annoyed that Three was the cheapest contract for my low usage, as I really wanted to leave and converting to a contract felt like rewarding them for their payg price increase rather than minimising my costs in the new environment.

Our family has 3 contracts with Three. They lost one last month to Vodafone who were both cheaper and better, I can see the others going over the next year.

[Tabbykatze]

I've saved hundreds if not thousands of pounds over the past 5 years of having Three Feel at Home and this rolling back of the Feel at Home is really quite naff. From the looks of things, it isn't even the mobile operators whom are doing this, more down there are no agreements in place between our government and EU countries to share the data on usage so they ultimately cannot properly establish the necessary to continue the Feel at Home system.

Sure, it means for the few weeks I go abroad a year it'll add another 10-30 pounds a visit but it's still the principal that I've lost another great feature alongside reduced travel capabilities and now with the added tax increase (what is the manifesto worth now?). I just see the promises of Brexit being slowly decayed even further and this is just another in a long line of things that have happened and are yet to happen.

Yep, this is going to be a Brexit thread.

Well some of us will be hacked off. I might have believed their slant on costs, but Three burned my good will when they increased pay as you go charges by about a magnitude and forced me to go contract. At the time I was actually annoyed that Three was the cheapest contract for my low usage, as I really wanted to leave and converting to a contract felt like rewarding them for their payg price increase rather than minimising my costs in the new environment.

Our family has 3 contracts with Three. They lost one last month to Vodafone who were both cheaper and better, I can see the others going over the next year.

I've been using Three for 13 years with multiple contracts for my wife and I and my only issue with Three has been their loyalty program is terrible. I don't care about wantoo or whatever it is, I just want a cheaper monthly contract and having to negotiate this every time a contract is up is exhausting. But I have found Vodafone and EE (use both in my current and previous jobs) both worse in general customer service, general service availability and contract price. For my needs which are quite data heavy, Three has always been my recommendation.

Tbh, I think all of them are trying harder and harder to make PayG untenable.

[Darkedge]

Project fear proved YET AGAIN to be Project truth. Sad how far our country has fallen since it stabbed itself in the face, I mean it was on a decline before but Brexit has accelerated that significantly just to give more money to already rich people and pacify some racists.

[cheesemp]

Will people be bothered about paying a daily fee like this for the benefits of roaming a few weeks every year?

Well some of us will be hacked off. I might have believed their slant on costs, but Three burned my good will when they increased pay as you go charges by about a magnitude and forced me to go contract. At the time I was actually annoyed that Three was the cheapest contract for my low usage, as I really wanted to leave and converting to a contract felt like rewarding them for their payg price increase rather than minimising my costs in the new environment.

Our family has 3 contracts with Three. They lost one last month to Vodafone who were both cheaper and better, I can see the others going over the next year.

I only get a good signal with EE or 3 at home. Since EE think a sub £20 contract is not a thing I've got to have three. I did find id mobile available as a slightly cheaper 3 network provider. Sure its still giving three your money but not as much?
---------
But yeah this is going to turn into a brexit thread. Thanks for nothing Boris and co.

[Crowls]

Considering that they had this feature before it was required by the EU and it covered non-EU countries too, it does seem odd that they have binned it entirely rather making it a premium feature on some contracts and charging a monthly premium rather than this daily fee approach.

The bigger issue for me with 3 is that their network coverage and speeds are just so erratic, no point to removing the data usage concerns with an unlimited plan if you can't rely on the network and that's why I'll be moving elsewhere when my contract is up in a couple of months, this roaming change just gives me one less reason to consider staying.

[Tabbykatze]

The bigger issue for me with 3 is that their network coverage and speeds are just so erratic, no point to removing the data usage concerns with an unlimited plan if you can't rely on the network and that's why I'll be moving elsewhere when my contract is up in a couple of months, this roaming change just gives me one less reason to consider staying.

If you had said this 5-6 years ago I would have wholeheartedly agreed with you, but over the past few years the number of "Three Spots" i've personally encountered have dramatically reduced.

[LSG501]

If you had said this 5-6 years ago I would have wholeheartedly agreed with you, but over the past few years the number of "Three Spots" i've personally encountered have dramatically reduced.

A HUGE amount of Norfolk (where I live) isn't covered by 3 network, hell the coverage is sketchy where I live and it supposedly covers me.

As to the charge, honestly, this feels like a money grab (not just three, ee started it) on new users rather than being down to brexit/covid or whatever excuse businesses want to use at the moment.
The way it reads to me is you have to pay £2 a day even if you don't use your phone as well so an average 10 day holiday could net them £20 quid (£50 outside EU) even if you don't make use of your phone.

They also say about 'only charging travellers' and as such saving money for those not travelling abroad....that will only happen if the cost of the contract etc goes down accordingly and I doubt that will happen.

[Ttaskmaster]

Three have absolutely hideous signal coverage.
My wife upgraded to the Galaxy S10+ and Three were by far the cheapest, so against all my vehement aversions, and because she is an idiot, she went with Three... and not a day goes by when she isn't swearing and cursing, because the call quality is ridiculous, or the calls drop out, or calls are missed, or calls don't even go through, and all that without even touching on the problems with data coverage. This isn't just at home, but at work, on the motorway from Reading all the way to Bath, and back into London, down to Kent and up through The Lakes all the way to Scotland.

Yes, I pay stupid money for my Vodafone, but I always have at least 50% signal and usually 100%... I'm only considering jumping to O2 because they seem to have a better deal on an S21 Ultra and my own S version can still be counted on one hand!

[Gentle Viking]

My provider contacted me a good month ago to tell my my cost will be going up from 99 DKkr/mo to 109.
But then of course my plan would change from 20 Gb / 20 H speak to free speak and 40 GB data, BUT !! the problem is i only use 3-4 Gb of data and for sure less than 4 hours of speak on the damn thing every month.

So i contacted them, telling them off as they are just grabbing for more money, and if they looked at my usage it would be clear that i was already on a severely overkill subscription.
And then i changed to a free speech - 15 GB/mo plan, that cost the same as my old plan did.

I have access to 2 nationwide networks due to a roaming agreement between the 2 companies ( none of them 3 ) so i am good, even if i can still at times loose 4G for a few seconds, but who care it is a stupid phone and i prefer if it just shut the hell up, which it also do in general with about 2 calls a week and a handful of texts.

[mazzy2u]

Yeah, having been burned (read incinerated) in the past by roaming charges, the next holiday I take (whenever that is) I will just switch my phone off or, if I really need my phone, get a local sim. I suppose with the rise of Whatsapp and the like, its not going to be such an annoyance if you can find free wifi on your travels away from you hotel/Airbnb/tent. It does seem that some of the promises that were magically going to appear with Brexit have sort of, well, done the exact opposite.

[DanceswithUnix]

I'm only considering jumping to O2 because they seem to have a better deal on an S21 Ultra and my own S version can still be counted on one hand!

My son's phone was from a deal on the Samsung uk website, and Vodafone was the cheapest (which was a shock to me). Might be worth you looking on there.

I'm on a 2GB/month sim only deal from Three which is £5 per month, there isn't much competition down at that level hence I'm kind of stuck with Three.

[jimbouk]

£2 a day considering I pay £10 a month just doesn't make sense. Second sim slots is becoming more common in phones so £10 for a month with a local sim compared to £14 for the pleasure of using your existing contact for a week. Plus wifi when you reach your destination as metnioned.

Roaming with Three was a real convenience and one reason I was with them for a while. America, Sri Lanka and a few European holidays was well worth a small premium on a contract for a few years when I did that sort of thing.

[LSG501]

My son's phone was from a deal on the Samsung uk website, and Vodafone was the cheapest (which was a shock to me). Might be worth you looking on there.

I'm on a 2GB/month sim only deal from Three which is £5 per month, there isn't much competition down at that level hence I'm kind of stuck with Three.

I'm only using payg (I work from home so no real need for contract) and they're forever sending me 'offers' on contracts, sure there were a few around £5 with better usage.

Might be worth grabbing one of their payg sims, sticking it in a phone and hardly use it and then wait for the offers to roll in, it didn't take long lol.

[567]

Project fear proved YET AGAIN to be Project truth. Sad how far our country has fallen since it stabbed itself in the face, I mean it was on a decline before but Brexit has accelerated that significantly just to give more money to already rich people and pacify some racists.

What complete nonsense! I'm guessing you keep your head in the sand in relation to the Mountain of problems in the 27 Member States and Euro. There has been many predictions from the Remain side that have been proven wrong since the UK decided to leave the EU in 2016. How sad that you can't get over a referendum result from 5 years ago. I don't know how Hexus allows you to spread defamation online. I'm guessing there is no moderators on this site like other sites. Finally, if you want to use your three contract then roaming is still free to use in Republic of Ireland and Isle of Man. By Three charging a fee to roam in other Countries out the EU (£5 per day) then has nothing to do with Brexit. Three could have just charged a fee to roam in the EU and remain free for other Countries outside the EU however decided not to. Therefore there is more to their decision than due to Brexit.

[Ttaskmaster]

My son's phone was from a deal on the Samsung uk website, and Vodafone was the cheapest (which was a shock to me). Might be worth you looking on there.

Appreciated, but I already did that, O2 is several quid a month cheaper than Sammy direct, and O2 seem cheaper on the tarrif than Vodafone, with the latter seemingly more on a mission to see how much they can get away with charging... a far cry from when they first offered me 100GB of data for less money than a meal at Burger King!!
The main thing is scoring free earbuds and any coverage/support deals. Hoping I can negotiate something by declining all their silly entertainment packages.

There's generally not much between the different suppliers, though.

There has been many predictions from the Remain side that have been proven wrong since the UK decided to leave the EU in 2016.

There have been many that have been proven right too... 30% increase on stuff I regularly buy from Slovenia, Germany and several other countries, for example.
There's also more to those than just Brexit, but Brexit and the altering of fees permissible was basically the pretext that enabled all the rest of it.