A lot of service providers are trying to update their services abroad. Verizon is certainly one of those companies that is looking to give their customers more options as they travel. That’s one of the things that we want to make sure we get across. At the end of the day, you have a multitude of options with Verizon International Plans when it comes to how much you want to pay. Naturally, as with most things in life the more you pay the more coverage you’ll get. We also want to explore what could work best in the realm of local coverage. The SIM card option in our eyes is one that Verizon customers shouldn’t dismiss.
With Verizon, you are going to have the option of buying a Verizon TravelPass. This is going to be something that you’ll have to activate on a daily basis. If you want to book what you could really call a Verizon international plan, there are other options or other rates and benefits that you can access with one of these plans. One of the main things that stands out to us, is that if you’re a Verizon customer you should probably take out a calculator and pen and paper before you take your phone abroad. There are some decisions that you’re going to have to make. Ideally, you’ll be well informed before you choose one of the specific Verizon international plans.
What Options Do I Have With These Plans?
As we mentioned there are going to be a couple of options that you’re going to have to choose from. You’ll have the Pay as you Go plan. Where we could say that you’ll be dealing “roaming fees”. One of the things though, that we “like” about this option is that if you are very careful about your usage rate there is a good chance that you can control how much you’ll pay at the end of the month. Certainly one of the things that we don’t like about this option is that you can end up paying a ton of cash if you’re not careful. We are going to be going over that option here shortly.
Another one of the options that you’re going to have is to pay the international travel pass fee. One of the biggest advantages that you’re going to have with Verizon’s international pass is that you could be getting 4G coverage in many countries. The problem that you may run into is that the speed will decrease once you’ve used up a couple of GB per day. At the begging of the day though you could be pretty much using your phone at the same speed as you do locally. This fee has to be paid every single day that you want coverage. If you don’t want coverage on a particular day you don’t have to activate the international travel pass.
The third option that you’re going to have with Verizon is the Monthly international travel plan. This is essentially the true Verizon international travel plan. This plan is going to be a little bit more costly than most people would have probably hoped. In the lower tier version you have to pay 70 dollars for the monthly coverage abroad. You’ll get the chance to send 100 texts and receive as many as you want. You get 100 minutes to call back home or to other countries. Also, you’ll be getting .5GB of data included in the plan. You can get pretty much double of everything that is offered in the Verizon international plan if you pay for the premium plan. This plan is going to cost you 130 dollars a month.
Verizon International Plans : Pay As You Go Plan
The pay as you go plan isn’t really a plan per se. In our view this is just the way that Verizon is labeling their roaming fees these days. The main positive take away from these roaming fees is that there is a chance that you can get coverage in over 200 countries. Therefore, if you have to use your phone in an emergency while you’re abroad then you’ll be able to do so. Obviously the negative aspect is that if you don’t monitor your usage closely there is a good chance that you’ll end up paying a very hefty fee. Here are the rates that you can expect to get charged:
(https://www.verizon.com/solutions-and-services/international-travel/)
As we mentioned just by looking at the rates you can probably tell that these are not the type of rates that you want to get charged. The reason why we decided to lead off with the Pay as you go option is to essentially give you a benchmark of what’s the highest rates that you can pay with a Verizon International plan. It essentially all gets better from here. Make sure though that you plan ahead what you’re going to do so that you don’t get hit with these rates as soon as you arrive abroad and try to get coverage from your regular service provider.
Do You Travel Via Airplane A Lot?
Before we move onto the next option we wanted to give this Verizon international plan a look. The $20 monthly plan is a Verizon option that is offered by certain cruise ships and airlines. The plan allows you to browse the web, and check your emails and things of that nature while you are on an airplane or cruise ship. If you’re someone who travels via airplane quite a bit, even if it’s on domestic travel these could be 20 dollars that are put into good use. The only downside to this option is that the airline that you’re traveling on has to have this service available. If that’s not the case then even if you’ve paid the 20 dollars you won’t get coverage. It could be a good idea to check with the airline before you make the purchase.
Verizon International Plans : Verizon’s International Pass
If you’re going to be abroad for only a couple of days it could make sense to activate an International pass for those days. You’re going to be paying 10 dollars a day for coverage in most countries. You can pay 5 dollars a day in Mexico and Canada. If you’re going to be abroad for 3 days particularly in Mexico or Canada it would make total sense to just pay the daily fee and not have to worry about a local SIM card or anything like that. The day pass essentially allows you to gain access to the unlimited plan that you have at home while you’re abroad. As with many other service providers the problem that you could have is speed.
One of the positive things about Verizon is that it offers 4G coverage in pretty much all of Spain, France, and other European countries that are popular tourist spots for their American customers. The issue though is that with the 10 dollars that you pay for the International pass you’re only going to be getting access to .5GB a day of the high speed data. It’s really a shame because if you’re already offering those 4G speeds why would you not grant more access to them? Of course, you can pay an extra fee on top of the 10 dollars a day if you want to continue getting the high speed coverage.
Even though we can certainly highlight some of the negative aspects of this particular option we do have to say that it happens to be one of the best ways to get coverage with your regular Verizon plan. At the same time you have that freedom to choose if you want to activate the service for the day or not. This gives you pretty much total control over what you’re going to spend. Other than the speed issue the other problem that we see with this option is that you can rack up a nasty bill if you are going to be abroad for a couple of weeks. Make sure to activate this option first thing in the morning to avoid roaming fees.
Monthly International Travel Plan
This is the third and final option that we mentioned. This is the option that Verizon offers to people who are going to be abroad for a couple of weeks or more. In theory you’d be paying a week of the daily international pass and getting a month’s worth of coverage. If it worked exactly like that, then it could be a much better option for sure. The problem is that you’re getting very little coverage for the 70 dollars. For example with T-Mobile you have the option of activating an international coverage plan that offers you a 25 cent a minute call rate. You’d pay 25 dollars for the 100 minutes that you get from paying Verizon 70 dollars!
The fun doesn’t stop there though. You get access to .5GB of data on this monthly plan for 70 dollars. Even if this were a daily allowance it would be overly low. After those .5GB of data you have to pay 25 dollars for ever .5GB of that you use. We probably don’t have to say this, but it’s a good idea to keep tabs on how much data you use regardless of the plan that you ultimately activate. If you’re not careful the costs could pile up rather quickly.
You’ll have the option with this the only true Verizon international plan to pay for a premium version of the plan. That’s going to set you back 130 dollars. As we mentioned before you get almost double or even triple the coverage that you’d get with the 70 dollar option. Then again you are paying probably up to 200 dollars when you add the regular cost of your plan. If you’re staying 2 weeks you could make the argument that it’s a better idea to pay for the international pass on a daily basis.
Verizon International Plans vs A Local SIM Card
In some of our more recent articles we’ve talked about how wireless service providers could potentially kill off the need to purchase a local SIM card when you travel. For the most part, we tend to recommend keeping your local number when the cost difference is not as severe. That’s why we tend to defend the travel pass option more than most people do. With the current Verizon international plans, it’s hard to not go ahead and recommend people that they get a local SIM card. On average pretty much anywhere in the world, you’re going to have access to a local SIM card for around 30 dollars.
With local SIM cards you’re granted access to the local network directly. That means that if 4G is available you’ll have access to it without necessarily having to count exactly how much data you’re spending. Of course, it’s always going to be a good idea to make sure that you know how much data you’re getting from the local SIM card. Don’t just assume that you’ll be getting an unlimited plan. Unlimited prepaid plans aren’t exactly easy to come by when you’re traveling abroad. What essentially pushes the balance completely in the favor of local SIM cards are the absurd rates for the minimal coverage that you can expect to get from Verizon International plans.
Verizon International Plans Conclusion
Right now Verizon is without a doubt falling behind when it comes to international coverage. The feeling though is where they are really wrong is in the rates. We could hold a debate why that is. Maybe, Verizon is for some reason paying international service providers too much to be able to get access to their networks. T-Mobile and Google Fi have been able to get better deals and that’s why they are able to offer international coverage at better prices. The other option is that management at Verizon is just greedy. As a consumer essentially finding out the answer to that dilemma is pretty much irrelevant.
There are very few instances where it could make sense to activate a Verizon international plan. That’s just the truth of the matter at the time of writing of this article. As was mentioned before, the “best option” is activating the international pass. This makes sense if you’re just going to be abroad for a couple of days. If you’re in Mexico or Canada it could make sense for maybe about 5 days or a week. Where you would take the 10 or 20 dollar price difference between sticking with your regular coverage over the local SIM card because you want to keep getting calls and texts to your regular number.
If we had to put a warning sign for Verizon International Plans it would probably read, always monitor the amount of data that you use abroad with one of these. These days a lot of people are so used to their unlimited plans that they never monitor the amount of data that they use. If you take that approach abroad with the current rates that Verizon is offering you could end up with a nasty bill at the end of the month. Just as a word of advice make sure that you plan ahead. This will allow you to get a sense for what you can expect to pay on your phone bill while abroad.