In December last year, Vodafone, EE, O2, and Three all assured the public that they had no plans to bring back roaming charges when travelling around the European Union after they were scrapped several years ago. EE was the first to reveal it was going back on its word in June but now Vodafone has announced it’s doing the same.
According to the firm, nothing is free and has to be paid for by someone. It also said that most of its customers do not travel and don't need free roaming so they shouldn’t have to subsidise this feature for those who do need it. Therefore, it will remove this feature from some of its plans and make those who need the feature pay more.
While this is definitely bad news for people who travel to Europe often, the company does say that the changes will only affect new and upgrading customers. Additionally, the new terms will come in on August 11 but the actual roaming charges won’t need to be paid until January 6, 2022. For those who don’t want to pay for roaming, you will be able to acquire one of Vodafone’s Xtra plans which include roaming in 83 worldwide destinations. If you don’t need an entire plan, eight and 15-day passes can be purchased for just £1 a day.
One exception to the changes will be the Republic of Ireland. Any roaming charges in the country will remain inclusive for all customers.
One of the big complaints with roaming charges before, was that people were being lumped with massive bills that were too expensive. Going forward, Vodafone says there will be no unexpectedly high bills and that you’ll be able to set a spending limit on your data usage. While the firm claims that roaming fees will be transparent, we won’t really know if this is true until it’s implemented and people start being billed for roaming.
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