Vodafone Red now with free European roaming

6 May 2016   By Samantha Smith

NEW and upgrading Vodafone pay monthly customers will find they're now able to roam free of charge in 40 European countries.

People with a 12- or 24-month Red or Red Value tariff will get unlimited calls, texts and picture messages to mobiles and standard landlines within the roaming zone.

They'll also get from 500MB up to 4GB of data - including 4G where it's available - depending on their plan.

Prices start from £18 a month on a 12-month SIM-only contract, with handset plans costing from £24 a month for the cheapest handsets - the likes of the Microsoft Lumia 550, the Sony Xperia M4 Aqua, and the LG G4c.

vodafone store front
Credit: kailim/Shutterstock.com

Where can I roam?

Using our phones in the EU became much cheaper as of last weekend.

But those cheaper rates only apply to mobile use made within the EU and a couple of extra nations that are part of the European Economic Area (which doesn't, for example, include Switzerland).

Vodafone seem quite proud of the fact that their inclusive roaming zone is bigger, and say that having looked at their customers' roaming data use, more than 80% of the overseas travel their pay monthly customers do will be inside it.

Vodafone inclusive roaming zone
Albania Austria Belgium Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria
Channel Islands (Jersey & Guernsey) Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark
Estonia Finland France (inc Corsica) French Territories Germany
Gibraltar Greece Hungary Iceland Ireland
Isle of Man Italy (inc Vatican City) Latvia Liechtenstein Lithuania
Luxembourg Malta Monaco Netherlands Norway
Poland Portugal (inc Azores and Madeira) Romania San Marino Slovakia
Slovenia Spain (inc Canary Islands) Sweden Switzerland Turkey

For the more visually minded, there's a map showing all these destinations, at the bottom of this article.

How much will it cost?

So how much does free roaming cost?

As mentioned above, inclusive roaming is only available to those on one of Vodafone's Red or Red Value plans.

These range from plans for light users up to the biggest bundles, and while at the less expensive end of the range they seem to cost more than Vodafone's Standard tariffs, they tend to weight the allowances on offer differently.

As a very quick example:

  • The cheapest Red SIM-only deal costs £18 a month; it comes with unlimited UK calls and texts and 2GB of data
  • The most expensive Standard SIM-only deal costs £17 a month; while it offers 5GB of 4G data and unlimited texts, users will get just 500 minutes of UK calls
Plan Data Calls and texts European calls and texts European data Price
vodafone Standard 5GB 500 minutes,
unlimited
£17 per month
vodafone Red 2GB Unlimited Included 500MB £18 per month

For those who want a handset with their inclusive roaming, here's how much the cheapest tariff, the Red 1GB plan on a 24-month contract, costs with a variety of phones:

Handset UK allowance European allowance Price
vodafone Huawei P9 (reviewed) Unlimited calls and texts,
1GB of 4G data
Unlimited calls, texts, MMS,
500MB of 4G data
£28 per month
vodafone iPhone 5S 16GB Unlimited calls and texts,
1GB of 4G data
Unlimited calls, texts, MMS,
500MB of 4G data
£28 per month
vodafone Sony Xperia M5 Unlimited calls and texts,
1GB of 4G data
Unlimited calls, texts, MMS,
500MB of 4G data
£28 per month
vodafone iPhone SE 16GB (reviewed) Unlimited calls and texts,
1GB of 4G data
Unlimited calls, texts, MMS,
500MB of 4G data
£32 per month
vodafone Galaxy S7 32GB (reviewed) Unlimited calls and texts,
1GB of 4G data
Unlimited calls, texts, MMS,
500MB of 4G data
£42 per month

Customers can also boost their data allowance to 2GB both at home and abroad, for a further £6 a month.

Very new customers only

There's one more thing to note, which is likely to be a source of frustration for at least some new Vodafone customers.

Rather than apply the inclusive roaming to everyone on an eligible tariff, Vodafone are making it available only to those signing a new contract, whether first time customers or upgraders.

The first date on which the new contracts include roaming is Thursday May 5th; anyone who renewed, upgraded or signed up for the first time before then will still need to pay £3 a day to be able to use their UK allowances within the EU under the operator's Euro Traveller plan.

The good news here is that there doesn't seem to be anything in the terms regarding Vodafone's new 30 day network guarantee to stop people cancelling an order placed in the run up to the cut off date and starting afresh - apart from the hassle involved.

Inclusive roaming zone:

Map from Vodafone showing inclusive roaming area

SOURCE: Vodafone

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