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International Extra: Actual costs?

GeoffPG
2: Seeker
2: Seeker

I am a new Pay Montly Vodafone user and am looking at the Vodafone International extra. For £5 a month it offers 'up to 97%' off the cost of international calls. But when is the cost discounted by 97% and when isn't it? How much are calls actually discounted by?

12 REPLIES 12

AnnS
17: Community Champion
17: Community Champion

Hi @GeoffPG

 

 

You can find the countries covered By Vodafone International here:  Vodafone International countries  If you put the country you are calling on the link you will be able to find the cost for calling using the add on here: Calling abroad from the UK

Thanks, AnnS, but that link only gives information on the Saver 100 and Saver 500 Extras, at £3 or £7.50 a month. I am talking about an Extra that is offered once I loog into my account. For £5 a month, it offers - as I said - 'up to 97%' off all international calls. That sounds fantatstic, but it could mean anything - from 1% to 97%. I won't make a huge number of international calls and I am trying to weigh up which Extra to take. I presume it doesn't often give a 97% discount, otherwise it would be a no-brainer and they would never sell the Saver 100 or Saver 500 options. I tried to use the Chat option on the Vodafone site but it kept crashing my browser.

ToniCa
13: Advanced Member

You need to use the link provided by AnnS - https://www.vodafone.co.uk/explore/costs/calling-abroad-from-the-uk/ - and put in the country you want to call and the type of contract you have. For example, if you choose USA and Pay Monthly, you'll see that the cost of a call goes down from £2.00 pm standard, to 5p pm on Vodafone International - that particular choice of country seems to produce a saving of 97.5%. So, once you've got to 3 minutes in a month, you've paid off your £5. On the other hand, it looks as though there's no saving if you call France using Vodafone International. Just think about the countries you are likely to want to call, see what saving (if any) you might make, and figure out whether it looks worthwhile.

BTW, if you look at USA, but change to PAYG, the cost goes down from £1.50 pm to 1.5p pm!

Thanks, ToniCA.

I can see it now, but only by putting in USA as the country to call. But, as you say, if you put in France there's apparently no saving on Pay Monthly (at least, the 'Vodafone International' option is not displayed) whereas there is on PAYG. It was a call to Germany that prompted me to explore this and when I couldn't find out what the discount would be I found this forum and posted my message. So it seems there's no discount for Germany either. I will have to discover where the '200 destinations' apparently available on the 'Vodafone International' extra are and what the saving for each one is. Vodafone certainly does not make this easy! Maybe I should have bought a PAYG phone in the first place.

ToniCa
13: Advanced Member

I'm sure there used to be some genuine information on this, but many of the current Help pages seem to be designed not to inform. https://support.vodafone.co.uk/Using-our-network/Going-and-calling-abroad/Calling-and-texting-abroad... is just downright bizarre.

I have now managed to link up to Vodafone's Chat function and clarified the situation as best I can. In summary:

the International Extra is available to both PAYG and Pay Monthly customers, but Pay Monthly customers can access fewer countries. My chat partner was not able to find a list of the countries available to Pay Monthly customers and he did not comment on my request for the calling costs to the various countries. I would have to put each country into the link that AnnS provided to discover which countries are available to PayM customers and the cost. This is not explained anywhere on the Vodafone website, as far as I can see.

He said that I should use the Extra 100 or Extra 500 plans instead. When those minutes are used up, he said that additional minutes are charged at 10p per minute (which is what it says here: https://www.vodafone.co.uk/explore/costs/calling-abroad-from-the-uk/). Yet on the terms and conditions (http://www.vodafone.co.uk/terms-and-conditions/consumer/mobile/pay-as-you-go/vodafone-extras/#paym-e...) it says "If you go over your Extra allowance, standard charges will apply." When I have time I'll start another chat to try to resolve this. But in summary, I am very disappointed about the restricted scope of the International service for Pay M customers and the lack of information available about how it works.

 

 

ToniCa
13: Advanced Member

Thanks for that information - it clarifies things a lot.

The Ts&Cs are interesting in another respect - they're dated August 2018, and mention both recurring and one-off Extras. There's something of a "history" there, but it looks as though a piece of very unfair treatment of Pay Monthly customers has at long last been rectified. As a PAYG customer, I hadn't spotted that one, which is presumably more evident via the online account.

chistery
16: Advanced member
16: Advanced member

What countries are you looking to call mostly?

It could be anywhere. I have just started working for myself and I am in the shippng business, so I will need to speak to people all over the world.