A survey found that 87% of Brits going on holiday this year are worried about racking up costly charges when using their mobile phones when not in the UK following Brexit
UK holidaymakers could face bills of £175 for normal phone use when they’re away.
New research from On the Beach has found that Brits could be charged up to £175 for scrolling and Googling during a two-week holiday following the UK’s departure from the EU. A survey found that 87% of Brits going on holiday this year are worried about racking up costly charges when using their mobile.
The cost of roaming varies from provider to provider, but we’ve a handy rundown of the different charges here. While few holidaymakers are likely to hit the £175 figure, it’s easy to land yourself with a big bill with fairly normal usage.
A huge 94% of travellers have been stung with huge mobile data bills in the past with more than two-thirds saying they either forgot to turn off data roaming, or thought roaming was covered in their contract. The reality is that since Brexit, EU data roaming charges have left many holidaymakers lumped with huge phone bills for using the internet when abroad. Overall, 20% have been hit with these high bills more than three times.
Have you been hit with a high mobile bill while on holiday? Email [email protected]
Some holiday companies have specific offers that cover mobile phone usage to try and tempt those who want to keep scrolling but don’t fancy returning home to a hefty bill.
Zoe Harris, chief customer officer at On the Beach, said: “Some of the high mobile phone bills holidaymakers are returning to are more expensive than the holidays themselves, that’s why we’re taking a stand against mobile phone carriers. For 2024 On the Beach holidays we’re offering our holidaymakers free mobile data, meaning Brits can roam all they want and not get charged an arm and a leg for doings so.”
The new, free perk allows customers to use up to 5GB of free data via a digital eSIM through the Hubby app, that lets you keep your own mobile number and helps you to avoid expensive data roaming charges. According to On the Beach’s research, on average, Brits use 3.9GB of data per week.
Recently the Mirror tried out a different eSim provider in Turkey – one of the most popular destinations for British holidaymakers but one where roaming tends to be much more expensive than other European locations.
Without buying a bundle when using EE for example, calls cost £2.34 a minute to make and receive on EE in Turkey, texts 76p each and picture messages 83p. The network charges £7.84 a day for 500mb, which can be easy to burn through. That’s roughly two and half hours of podcast streaming or 250 web pages loaded.
With Airalo – one of many eSim products that are on the market – $4.50 (£3.54) will buy you 1GB of data lasting a week. The process of switching from my normal sim to the virtual one takes about five minutes.
While Turkey is not in the EU and therefore not covered by a 2017 bloc-wide law that made roaming, text, and calls free in all Member States, since the UK left the bloc British residents do not benefit from the excellent deal.
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