The ludicrous rates charged for using mobiles overseas have long been a subject of complaint amongst Aussie travellers: the best budget approach is to only use text messages and to minimise those, lest you cop a ridiculous bill at the end of your trip. Vodafone today launched new roaming plans under the Vodafone Traveller brand for post-paid users which (depending on your usage patterns) could make life a little cheaper.
If you sign up for the service (a no-charge option you can switch on and off at will), then you get charged a connection charge for making calls (between $1 and $4 depending on location). The call is then charged at the standard call rate for your plan, and can be included in standard call credits if you’re on a cap plan. Call receipt incurs a $1 each time charge.
Calling this way still isn’t super-cheap — even at $1 a pop, the costs will mount up — and at 75 cents, texting is cheaper on some existing overseas deals. And to be honest, we’d find it easier to recommend these plans if Vodafone wasn’t being so evasive, mendacious and confused about its current iPhone data plans: it’s hard to take a company seriously when it can’t sort out what its own policy is. But if you’re already a Vodafone post-paid customer and looking to travel, this is probably worth a look. (Vodafone is also jumping on the Olympic discount bandwagon by cutting roaming rates for visitors to China during August.)
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