Three and VOXI Customers Now Face Mobile Roaming Charges in Europe

27

May 2022
Three and VOXI Customers Now Face Mobile Roaming Charges in Europe (1)

Three and VOXI Customers Now Face Mobile Roaming Charges in Europe

Three and VOXI users now face a £2/day charge for using their mobile allowances in Europe, part of a shake-up in roaming charges following the UK’s exit from the European Union.

Three confirmed in September that it would join rivals Vodafone and EE and re-introduce roaming charges across Europe from the spring of 2022. VOXI, Vodafone’s youth-oriented brand, made a similar announcement this year.

Now both changes have taken effect. From Monday, 23 May, Three pay-monthly and SIM-only subscribers who joined or renewed on or from 1 October 2021 will pay £2 per day to use their minutes, text and data allowances in Europe.

The mobile provider is also ditching a deal that allowed many customers to use their allowances in 22 non-European destinations, including Australia, New Zealand, the US, and many countries in Central and South America. Users travelling to those destinations will now pay £5 per day to use their mobile phones.

Customers who haven’t renewed since September 2021 aren’t currently facing the fees. Many will have rolled onto Three’s out-of-contract pricing. While this is more expensive on a monthly basis, you should still have free roaming in Europe, as you haven’t signed onto Three’s updated contract terms. Some heavy travellers have taken this option, although Three has reportedly been pushing customers to recontract.

A spokesperson for Three said: "Our recontracting programme has been in place for a number of years and is unrelated to the changes in our roaming pricing. We are clear in our terms and conditions that we sometimes contact customers outside of their minimum term in order to offer them our most up to date pricing."

However, there is another out. Three isn’t levying roaming fees on customers on its pay-as-you-go packs. You can therefore order a free PAYG SIM from Three, load a data pack onto it, and use that data for no additional cost in 71 destinations worldwide. However, you’ll get a new number with the SIM and will need to use it at least once in the UK before heading abroad.

Meanwhile, as of Friday, 27 May, VOXI is also requiring its customers to purchase roaming passes to use their data in Europe. The Vodafone-owned brand will charge:

  • £2 for a one-day pass
  • £4 for a two-day pass
  • £8 for an eight-day pass
  • £15 for a 15-day pass

With these passes, you’ll be able to use either all the data in your regular plan or 20GB—whichever is less. If you plan to exceed your allowance or 20GB, you’ll need to buy extra data at £3 per GB, alongside a roaming pass.

Residents of the EU have enjoyed free roaming across the bloc since 2017. However, with the UK’s exit from the EU on 31 December 2021, UK residents lost their entitlement to “Roam Like at Home.” In its place, the government has encouraged mobile networks to charge “transparent and reasonable” roaming rates and has imposed loose guardrails, including requiring operators to alert users by text when they near £45 monthly spend on roaming and ask them to opt in to further spending.

During the Brexit transition period, the UK’s four main mobile operators all said they didn’t have plans to reintroduce roaming fees. But last summer, EE, Vodafone, and Three all U-turned on that pledge. Vodafone customers have paid roaming charges in Europe since 31 January 2022, while EE began imposing charges on 3 March 2022. Sky Mobile started charging roaming fees on 3 May 2022.

Among the big mobile providers, O2, Virgin Mobile, giffgaff, and Tesco Mobile haven’t reimposed roaming fees. 

Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) in particular has pledged not to reintroduce roaming charges on its mobile brands.

"Unlike other mobile operators who made the decision to bring back charges from this month, we will not be following suit," said Gareth Turpin, Chief Commercial Officer of Mobile at VMO2 in January.

Sources