Roaming on Lebara/Vodaphone

[barge1914]

Well the only offering from Popit so far is 100Gb with no fair usage cap, the bad news is it costs £75 a month, albeit you can pause it with no uk usage requirement. 6 months at £75!!!!!.

I’m looking at Lebara which runs on Vodaphone network. They let you use 30Gb of whatever your bundle size is. We want two SIMs one 25Gb (25gb roaming) and 40Gb (30 gb roaming). Altogether £25. Which is just about our average use (albeit before everything changed we could have 100Gb with Popit for the same). Lebara say (verbally with an air of uncertainty) for our two 84 day trips pa we would not be clobbered with fair usage restrictions.

I’ve sent an email as I would like to see that in writing.

Meanwhile, one question I doubt they or any operator would answer is can I use UK BBC and Netflix on the Vodaphone network abroad without a vpn? EE was good for this. So, has anyone on here had experience that may answer this?

 

[alcam]

Well the only offering from Popit so far is 100Gb with no fair usage cap, the bad news is it costs £75 a month, albeit you can pause it with no uk usage requirement. 6 months at £75!!!!!.

I’m looking at Lebara which runs on Vodaphone network. They let you use 30Gb of whatever your bundle size is. We want two SIMs one 25Gb (25gb roaming) and 40Gb (30 gb roaming). Altogether £25. Which is just about our average use (albeit before everything changed we could have 100Gb with Popit for the same). Lebara say (verbally with an air of uncertainty) for our two 84 day trips pa we would not be clobbered with fair usage restrictions.

I’ve sent an email as I would like to see that in writing.

Meanwhile, one question I doubt they or any operator would answer is can I use UK BBC and Netflix on the Vodaphone network abroad without a vpn? EE was good for this. So, has anyone on here had experience that may answer this?

I get Netflix on UK sim and Spanish/French sim no problem .
If lebara sim is not UK then BBC won't work . May work with VPN but I have had problems there
Others may have different experiences

 

[barge1914]

I get Netflix on UK sim and Spanish/French sim no problem .
If lebara sim is not UK then BBC won't work . May work with VPN but I have had problems there
Others may have different experiences

Presumably if you buy in uk it’s a uk SIM???

 

[TeamRienza]

I have just invested in a Lebara sim which arrived earlier this week. Bought on the understanding that the EU roaming is capped at 30 gb. Together with our two Smarty sims (used at home) giving 12gb each when abroad, these are sufficient for our 5 - 6 week trips.
Our next trip is scheduled for early April so a bit of a wait until it is tested for capacity and given the recent changes by other suppliers, it is possible my plan could be in vain. Time will tell.
Might I suggest you check the U Switch site, as I was able to obtain a 30gb for £7.95 with the first three months at half price. This is unique to U switch and is a better deal than going direct to Lebara, particularly as it matches the EU limit.
If it is successful we can always obtain a second Lebara sim with the advantage of it being a simple 30 day rolling contract.

Davy

 

[alcam]

Presumably if you buy in uk it’s a uk SIM???

My sim is tiekom which is Spanish
I did purchase while at home

 

[colinm]

Gf is on Lebara on our last 70 day trip she only used it lightly and it worked for the entire period, my 1p SIM stopped working after 60 days, although I used it a bit more than hers it was still very light usage.
Here's Lebara's 'fair use' policy.

The Roam-like home scheme is designed for customers who primarily live in the UK and make short trips to other European destinations. To safeguard against abuse, if your roaming usage is greater than your usage in the UK over any continuous 120-day period, you will be subject to a surcharge of 0.20p/MB (equivalent to £2/GB) for data, 0.04p/sec (equivalent to 2.4p/min) for outgoing calls, 0.01p/sec (equivalent to 0.6p/min) for incoming calls and 0.8p for sending an SMS. The surcharge is deducted from your pay-as-you-go (PAYG) allowance. You will need to top-up if you don't have any pay-as-you-go (PAYG) credit on your account. Similarly, all our plans and unlimited allowances are subject to fair usage policy -

So you need to make full use of the SIM whilst in UK or you will be charged.

 

[barge1914]

I have just invested in a Lebara sim which arrived earlier this week. Bought on the understanding that the EU roaming is capped at 30 gb. Together with our two Smarty sims (used at home) giving 12gb each when abroad, these are sufficient for our 5 - 6 week trips.
Our next trip is scheduled for early April so a bit of a wait until it is tested for capacity and given the recent changes by other suppliers, it is possible my plan could be in vain. Time will tell.
Might I suggest you check the U Switch site, as I was able to obtain a 30gb for £7.95 with the first three months at half price. This is unique to U switch and is a better deal than going direct to Lebara, particularly as it matches the EU limit.
If it is successful we can always obtain a second Lebara sim with the advantage of it being a simple 30 day rolling contract.

Davy

Sounds good, I’ve just had a look. Black Friday deal apparently.

 

[TeamRienza]

My deal was half price for 3 months then £7.95
I had been monitoring it for about 6 weeks and decided to buy before it potentially changed or was withdrawn.
As it happens they have reduced the initial payment to £2 approximately for black Friday.
I bought a previous Lebara SIM earlier this year 15gb for £6 approximately on the uSwitch site, (now i replaced it by the 30gb deal) again it was better than the Lebara site.
I previously improved my Smarty contracts using u switch. So worth checking from time to time.

Davy

 

[Wooie1958]

Another vote for the comparison sites, i also used Uswitch

I got a black friday 12 month contract on O2 with 50GB ( 25GB eu roaming ) for £10 a month ( now £10.88 a month ) which when it was about to run out i got an email direct from O2 saying i could stay on the same deal/price but it is now a rolling monthly contract.

At the same time the same contract direct from O2 was £30 a month

I have to say that the roaming service in France was truly spectacular with almost a permanant genuine 5G giving astronomical speeds the likes of which we can only dream of in the UK and even in the remotest of places

 

[Steve and Julie]

Have a look on Martin Lewis website you can get some cracking SIM only deals I got a Lebara 15gb for £1.25 for the first 6 months

 

[Drover]

I've just got a asda sim
25gb for £5.99 month.
It runs on vodaphone. I'm sure it said usable in eu, though it has not arrived yet. Only ordered on Friday night.
I was on smarty but they stopped the 3g service and it no longer works in my area even though I can see the mast and I have a 5g phone.
They basically said tough luck get someone else as they can't help.

 

[Lee]

Well the only offering from Popit so far is 100Gb with no fair usage cap, the bad news is it costs £75 a month, albeit you can pause it with no uk usage requirement. 6 months at £75!!!!!.

I’m looking at Lebara which runs on Vodaphone network. They let you use 30Gb of whatever your bundle size is. We want two SIMs one 25Gb (25gb roaming) and 40Gb (30 gb roaming). Altogether £25. Which is just about our average use (albeit before everything changed we could have 100Gb with Popit for the same). Lebara say (verbally with an air of uncertainty) for our two 84 day trips pa we would not be clobbered with fair usage restrictions.

I’ve sent an email as I would like to see that in writing.

Meanwhile, one question I doubt they or any operator would answer is can I use UK BBC and Netflix on the Vodaphone network abroad without a vpn? EE was good for this. So, has anyone on here had experience that may answer this?

I use ID mobile which also gives 30Gb abroad and is on the 3 network, I don't know whether Lebara, which uses the Vodafone network, only uses the Vodafone network abroad, this can be a problem if you're in a weak Vodafone area, rather than roaming but I do know if you have Vodafone on contract it does. We're as ID is on roaming abroad.

 

[barge1914]

My deal was half price for 3 months then £7.95
I had been monitoring it for about 6 weeks and decided to buy before it potentially changed or was withdrawn.
As it happens they have reduced the initial payment to £2 approximately for black Friday.
I bought a previous Lebara SIM earlier this year 15gb for £6 approximately on the uSwitch site, (now i replaced it by the 30gb deal) again it was better than the Lebara site.
I previously improved my Smarty contracts using u switch. So worth checking from time to time.

Davy

Does that mean Lebara lets an existing customer replace a SIM using Uswitch?

 

[barge1914]

Update on Popit…

<<
As you may know, the £75 premium plan is primarily designed for customers seeking a sole roaming product. However, we're thrilled to announce that we are also launching additional products this week that we believe will enhance our customers' experience.

Among the new offerings are Data Add Ons, available in 3GB and 10GB options, which can be used while roaming. We expect them to appeal to a wide range of customers looking for more flexibility during their travels as you can purchase as and when you wish, rather than changing your current plan.>>

What I like about Popit is you get a swift clear and personal response to communications. I tried to ask questions with EE sales….after 10min cut me off then announced another 30 wait…I dread to think what they might be like after they’ve got your money.

 

[TeamRienza]

Does that mean Lebara lets an existing customer replace a SIM using Uswitch?

I stopped paying for the first sim a few weeks ago by simply cancelling the payment (linked to debit card). I had heard that they might be reluctant to allow a replacement, but I used the same email address, debit card and password without issue. I suppose in this day and age it is not unknown for people to have more than one sim.
Plan B would have been to simply use another email and debit card, or register a sim in my wife’s name etc.
I understand that they expect to offer Esims in the near future. I had thought they already did which is a minor inconvenience. My old phone accepted 2 physical sims, but my new one only does 1 physical and 1E sim. I had to upgrade my phone as the Smarty 3G signal was turned off in my area and voice calls did not work, so for the time being the Lebara sim is working well in the old phone, including calls! I usually have a second phone in the van anyway, and as I said, next trip needing the Lebara sim for data is April. Hopefully the E sim will be active by then.

Davy

 

[TJBi]

<snip. I had to upgrade my phone as the Smarty 3G signal was turned off in my area and voice calls did not work<snip>

I went for the other solution and kept my phone, with which I'm very happy, and got an RWG SIM using Next/EE. As I understand it, that should continue to work, if necessary using 2G for voice calls. Minor inconvenience in that 2G voice and 4G data can't be used simultaneously.