‘sim only’ deals with free roaming

running out of patience with three at the moment and wifes just out of her 2 year contract, so looking at shifting to a rolling monthly ‘sim only’ contract with free roaming.

im currently doing this with smarty and am happy enough, the only slight issue is that you need to buy add-ons for calling abroad, which we need from time to time when we holiday in greece.

been on MSE and it would appear that lebara are a similar company, and probably provide that service at no extra cost.

can anyone confirm that please?  if so then i may also move to lebara.

i think we can find monthly contracts for a tenner or less which we’re happy with.

any others to consider?  anyone actually with lebara and have any issues?  i suppose the good thing about that is you can just bin them and go elsewhere if theyre not up to scratch.

thanks

I have the whole family of Lebara and find them great. My wife is Spanish, so regularly calls abroad without issue. Roaming works well in EU. I can manage all 4 numbers via my app. We are all on £5 or £10 a month but can upgrade for the summer if we are in Spain.

I’ve been with Lebara for years. No dramas at all.

I pay £5 a month to Asda mobile for unlimited calls/3Gb data, unlimited use in Europe. They piggyback on Vodaphone. No contract, SIM only. Good service for the last few years (since Three shat on us re. roaming)

Lebara here too. We joined up on one of the MoneySavingExpert deals which was super cheap for 6 months, then £4.90 a month for 5Gb. Have 3 SIMs on it managed through the app. I use the AirtimeRewards App to acrue funds from my credit card spending, you can’t use this for the basic monthly fee, but there is a way to use it to top up data if required e.g. if you run low in a month.

We used them for roaming in Italy in the summer with no probs.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cheap-mobile-finder/sim-only/

Take a look at Lyca mobile. They use the EE network and have roaming included in their contract options. Not all countries are covered but meet your needs.

I’m with Lebara and have used roaming in a few EU countries, and their non EU roaming add ons are less of a rip off than the bigger networks. They’ve also enabled WiFi calling recently which helps with our dodgy signal indoors. MSE has some cheap intro deals eg 5Gb for 1.25/month for 6 months then 4.90

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cheap-mobile-finder/sim-only/lebara/

I was with Lebara, no issues at all except poor coverage from Vodafone in my local area. I moved to id who also seen fine, they use 3 but I don’t know what their deals are on rolling month contracts. Btw, 3’s coverage round here isn’t much better but I’m on a better data allowance which I never use anyway…

I’m on ee sim only monthly. It’s free roaming included but the previous 12 months wasn’t. It changed back when I ticked to roll over the contract.

So I’m not sure what that tells you, other than to double check or read the small print

lovely, just ordered 2 lebara sims through the MSE links, cheap as chips.

thanks all

Moved from O2 to 1p mobile (EE backed) and couldn’t be happier, cheaper and for me the signal is miles better.

I cycle through the cheapest mobile providers, jumping from discount to discount. Lebara are the best IME and IMO.

I  use Lebara in a router in our camper, so have only used them for data but it’s been spot on including using it abroad.

Only issue I’ve had is that it doesn’t include Switzerland and had to pay for their add on. It does say so in their T&Cs but it wasn’t very clear.

If happily use them for my phone but like to have a different network to the van so I’m looking at something on EE – either Lyca or 1p I think.

I believe 1p mobile get the full speed and 5G while other backed EE mvno networks don’t. I’m not sure what Lyca get.

Thought Smarty did free roaming in Europe? Suire I didn’t have to sort anything when I was in France last year with them.

They do. However you can’t ring a foreign number without an add-on.

Lyca here… uSwitch deal of 15gb for £6.90 a month. Wanted EE for coverage. 5g & Roaming included

1p mobile here as well. £10 month unlimited with 50gb of data. Free roaming.

Coverage is same as EE

Beware of Lyca mobile. I signed up with a credit card I had used for years with no issues and had attempted fraud transactions shortly afterwards.

Not alone.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6528794/lycamobile-users-had-card-fraud-attempted-card-fraud-recently

I ditched Lyca and have had no further card problems with new credit card issues.

My job is changing soon to regular visits to the US. Any good deals that include the USA?

This thread has come just at the right time for me.

Thanks everyone.

If you don’t travel loads, a temporary e sim can work better. I’ve had great deals in the USA using Airalo https://www.airalo.com and it means you’re not tied to a network so it hunts around for the best signal.

I’ll be in the us 4 days a month on average.

+1 for 1pmobile, EE is loads better where I live than the other networks. £10 a month for 25gb data, EU roaming included. I just get a Nomad or Airalo eSIM if I’m going beyond that.

Anyone in London and use 1p mobile?

Do you still get a good service in central London?

I’m using Smarty at the moment and find the service is poor. The phone will say I have full reception but when I open the browser it’s very slow or says I’m offline.

Getting a bit fed up of it and thinking of switching to someone else….

Dual SIMs are the way to go, imo. I keep my main number on one SIM, and switch the other one around for where I’m going, or for whatever the best deal is on data at the time, without having all of the faff of number porting.

Recently bought a Lebara SIM on a rolling monthly contract, purely as they were the one company to include India under their free data roaming as well as the EU…

It worked faultlessly in India… Worked fine here in the UK too, but didn’t need it for that. Cancelled it as soon as we got back from India (just log on to the app and turn off the automatic monthly renewal)… Cost £2.99 per month on a promo (first 3 months, think it would have been like £8 per month after) with 30GB of data from memory…

Plenty happy enough with my iD mobile SIM and the free roaming (EU), huge data allowance and all the extras I get with it for £10 a month, but would readily swap to Lebara if it made sense to.

@jairaj

I work in London most days also across the south of the country a lot. I’m on 1p and the signal is really good with decent speed after being on O2 and  before that Virgin media backed Vodafone over the last few years, EE backed 1p mobile is the best out of all of them.

Thank you @darksideby182