Three UK have announced they will be extending their “Feel Like Home” package to 24 more countries
Three UK thinks Roaming Charges suck. I agree (Grab – Three.co.uk)
The idea behind Three UK’s “Feel Like Home” package is that you can use you minutes, text and data abroad as you would in the UK.
Which can be a money saver. I’ll get onto that in a bit.
The new countries being added to Three’s Feel Like Home presence list is targeting Europe (mainly in preparation for the complete drop in EU Roaming charges coming in next year).
The full list is:
Belgium, Bulgaria, Channel Islands (Jersey & Guernsey), Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Isle of Man, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia.
This will bring Three’s Feel Like Home destination count up to 42 countries. Currently, you can use it in
Australia, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Macau, New Zealand, Norway, Republic of Ireland, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States of America.
“Feel Like Home” is avalible on all Three Pay Monthly plans, except Three Essentials.
They deduct as normal from your plan. Those on Unlimited plans can just carry on as normal.
There are some restrictions of course. These include:
- Those on Unlimited Tariff are limited to 12GB, 5000 text or 3,000 minutes a month.
- Numbers starting with 070, 084, 087, 09 and 118 directory services are excluded from the offer
- You cannot uses your phone as a personal hotspot (tethering). You will need a dedicated data plan and device if you want to tether.
- You can’t use your minutes allowance to make calls to local or other international numbers, as you can only use your inclusive minutes to call UK numbers, whether you’re in the UK or a Feel At Home destination.
I’ve found the roaming to be helpful when I’ve gone on trips to the USA – I don’t have to worry about finding a Walgreens that sells cheap moblie phones and activate them with $25 of credit I’ll never use up for connectivity back home.
As for the savings here’s a couple of screengrabs from Three when I’ve been travelling:
For a quick one day trip to Ireland… £53.59. Better than a kick in the teeth!
And how about a week in the USA?…. It shows I need to keep off the phone occasionally…
£4,278.98!!!!!!!!!!
There are downsides however. Here’s a few of my experiences:
- Data speeds can be varible (for example, I found in Ireland that it was crawling all day), and in the USA, I had to keep to AT&T as opposed to T-Mobile USA to keep some semblance of data speeds.
- That and ping speeds are awful as data has to go via London wherever you are in the world. So expect a little bit of a wait.
- There is speed throttling. It isn’t that obvious, but it is there.
There are savings to be had if you’re happy with the speed and connectivity.
You can get Three’s “Feel Like Home” also on Pay as you go – so you can try it out with another phone before committing to a contract.
If you’re travelling from the UK to destinations around the world covered by this offering – it’s defiantly worth considering.
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