Verizon introduced a daily flat rate for international travelers. (Photo: Chris McGinnis)
If Verizon is your smartphone carrier and you travel the world a lot, you have a new option called TravelPass. Priced at $2 a day per line in Mexico and Canada and $10 a day in around 100 other countries, the new plan lets you “take your domestic talk, text and data allowances with you,” Verizon says.
The $2 per day deal is excellent for quick trips to Mexico and Canada. But that $10 daily fee elsewhere still seems pretty high, even though it’s at least better than Verizon’s current monthly plans.
Once you sign up for TravelPass, the fee kicks in when you receive a call, connect to a data service, or send a text inside one of the 65+ countries where it works. Once that 24 hours is up, the daily fee won’t kick in again until you receive a call, connect to a data service, or send a text – at which point another TravelPass day will begin.
To sign up go to MyVerizon.com and select “manage international services” or use the MyVerizon app on your phone to activate it before embarking on a trip. Once at your destination, you’ll receive a text message welcoming you to the country and reminding you of the service and the daily fee.
Besides the flat daily fee, TravelPass assesses no per-use fee for talk, text or data as long as you stay within your domestic plan’s limits.
Related: AT&T follows Verizon, T-Mobile to more free roaming
According to CNNMoney, Verizon customers are likely to get 3G or 4G speeds when they’re in foreign countries- compared to the slower 2G speeds from T-Mobile, which has made a lot of noise recently about its new “free” international roaming plans.
An analysis by Forbes says that evaluating whether TravelPass is a good deal depends on how much you’ll use your phone while abroad. Buying a local SIM card could be a much better option, Forbes notes, and Verizon’s CDMA phones might not work on the GSM networks that are common in other countries.
Click here to see where TravelPass works
How do you use your phone when overseas? Which carrier do you use and how do you avoid spending too much? Please leave your tips below…
