Vodafone’s $5 International Roaming deal is still one of the best

One of the biggest inconveniences of international travel is having to know when to take out a second mortgage because you watched one TikTok after a few too many Bintangs. Most travellers are accustomed to the idea of a strictly WiFi-only trip abroad, but even the most experienced travellers have been stung with a killer phone bill upon returning home. That’s what’s still so great about the Vodafone $5 International Roaming deal for mobile and mobile broadband customers. It’s one less thing to worry about when planning your big trip away.

Here’s a quick look at the key facts for Vodafone $5 Roaming:

• Access to your included Vodafone calls, texts and data allowance while travelling overseas
• No activation required. $5 is only charged on days when your Vodafone inclusions are accessed or used (e.g. if you make a call or use the internet)
• $5 Roaming available for a maximum of 90 days in the calendar year
• $5 Roaming is available on Vodafone’s postpaid mobile and mobile broadband plans in over 100 countries
• For Vodafone prepaid customers, and postpaid customers travelling outside of the eligible roaming countries, additional rates are applied

Over the years, Australians have developed a well-founded mistrust of travelling abroad with their Australian SIM card. Most International Roaming plans have offered such bad value, historically, that purchasing a temporary SIM from the country you’re travelling to is widely accepted as the most economical way for Australians to use their phone overseas.

That’s not necessarily the case for Vodafone customers. One of the telco’s headline benefits is its $5 Roaming deal. The way it works is simple: for $5 per day, Vodafone will give you access to your regular calls, texts and data when you travel to over 100 countries. So if you travel overseas for 14 days, and you use your phone every day, you will pay $70 for the whole journey.

You will only pay your daily $5 fee if you use calls, texts or data. So you have access to public WiFi and don’t need to use your included calls, texts or data, you won’t be charged for $5 Roaming that day.

The $5 fee is charged the moment you use any of your inclusions; this can even be triggered by receiving a call or via background data usage if your phone is set to download updates automatically.

It’s typically safest to keep automatic downloads and updates switched off or set to WiFi-only when travelling abroad. And if you really want to manage your usage, keeping your phone in Airplane mode whenever you’re not actively using it should save you from accidentally using too much data.

Vodafone’s $5 Roaming is available on all Vodafone Infinite and Plus mobile plans and all Vodafone Infinite Data mobile broadband plans. Here’s a summary of Vodafone’s most popular mobile plans that include international roaming:

And here's a quick round-up of popular Vodafone mobile broadband plans that offer $5 Roaming: 

If you’re roaming with Vodafone Prepaid, or roaming in a country where $5 Roaming isn’t available, you’ll need to use PAYG (Pay As You Go) roaming rates as your guide for how much you should expect to pay.

For a comprehensive list of PAYG and Maritime Roaming rates with Vodafone, head over to the official website. Otherwise, here are the prepaid roaming packs you can purchase from Vodafone:

• Calls: 25 incoming/outgoing call minutes (not including video calls)
• Text: 30 international text
• Expiry: 1 day

• Calls: 90 incoming/outgoing call minutes (not including video calls)
• Text: 120 international text
• Expiry: 3 days

• Calls: 200 incoming/outgoing call minutes (not including video calls)
• Text: 300 international text
• Expiry: 7 days

As you can see, those rates technically work out at $5 per day if we’re talking recharge duration, but the inclusions don’t offer a lot of wiggle room. 200MB per day can be used up in a flash.

If you’re a Vodafone prepaid customer, we’d either recommend switching to a month-to-month postpaid plan for the duration of your stay abroad, or simply buying a temporary SIM card in the country you visit.

In the simplest telco terms, international roaming is the use of your SIM card in parts of the globe not directly serviced by your provider. Using your Australian SIM card outside of Australia almost always comes at a cost.

The nuts and bolts of international roaming for each individual are ultimately decided by their provider (and global cellular network providers). When you use your Australian SIM card overseas, you and your service provider are essentially leasing the privilege from network providers from around the world.

Essentially, there’s no ceiling to how much money these providers can charge each other for international roaming costs. So while it might seem like your chosen provider is trying to rip you off for roaming costs, it’s usually the network provider overseas who is charging you an arm and a leg. Then again, the same goes for Australian providers and people travelling to Australia.

Sadly, it’s just one of those situations where both sides suck.