Warning - Three In Europe

[Robert Clark]

We just had a bit of a shock when trying to use a Three pay monthly phone in Europe
The phone worked fine in those countries included but when I tried to buy a Euro Internet Pass for Getmany and the Netherlands was told by Three that these are not available to business customers
Three said my only option was to pay 40p per megabyte to browse the Internet, which by my reckoning would have cost us hundreds of pounds a week
Retail customers are not affected by this but business customers should beware

 

[Judge Mental]

Turn of roaming and enjoy your trip......wifi available almost everywhere....

we are in spain on three contract and it has worked seemlessly this trip as soon as we arrived in France

 

[DBK]

The Three feel at home thing is very clearly aimed at folk going on holiday.

I'm using it at the moment in Spain and it is working but slow. My O2 mobile costs me £1.99 a day for theoretically unlimited data although they have ways of restricting usage if I started try to watch TV. However, it is much faster than Three so far. My suspicion is the partners Three are using are not exactly prioritising Three traffic - but that may be unfair and only based on my limited experience of it so far.

So my suggestion would be look to someone else than Three, but thanks for the warning. I will be close to the Portuguese border soon and if my Three mifi logs on to a Portuguese provider it will suddenly cost a fortune to use it.

Lots of traps for the unwary!

 

[Addie]

The most you can legally be charged for data roaming by any European operator is 19p per MB, but still this is fairly expensive.

 

[Robert Clark]

Turn of roaming and enjoy your trip......wifi available almost everywhere....

we are in spain on three contract and it has worked seemlessly this trip as soon as we arrived in France

Easier said than done at times, when you're using data for:
Campercontact to find your next aire (The downloadable version is not great)
Google maps when cycling
Trip advisor for finding places to eat
We found wifi was seldom available on aires

Thankfully Mrs C's phone is still on EE and has a fairly inexpensive European add on

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[Judge Mental]

EE is more reasonable on non three feel at home destinations. Best ever was BlackBerry, real cheap international roaming until they pulled it

 

[jumar]

Just to update, Three fine in Spain using mifi for the past week or so, in fact much quicker than my Spanish contract system.

 

[Gellyneck]

Three said my only option was to pay 40p per megabyte to browse the Internet, which by my reckoning would have cost us hundreds of pounds a week
Retail customers are not affected by this but business customers should beware

Cheaper to buy a second phone on a retail contract than spend that amount?

 

[Robert Clark]

Cheaper to buy a second phone on a retail contract than spend that amount?

Couldn't agree more Gellyneck
We're planning to buy a Mifi - with a Three roaming data sim card on a retail contract at £10 for 1GB
Mrs C's roaming upgrade on EE is £99 for 2 GB, so we're saving money from day one!
Then we can either opt to buy a Europe upgrade for the Three card for the countries not covered at £5 per day, or if we're in that country for a while, simply buy a local data sim card
Could be a plan?

 

[Gellyneck]

Couldn't agree more Gellyneck
We're planning to buy a Mifi - with a Three roaming data sim card on a retail contract at £10 for 1GB
Mrs C's roaming upgrade on EE is £99 for 2 GB, so we're saving money from day one!
Then we can either opt to buy a Europe upgrade for the Three card for the countries not covered at £5 per day, or if we're in that country for a while, simply buy a local data sim card
Could be a plan?

Haven't looked into 3 mifi costs \ availability on the Continent yet but currently using a 3gb for £10 in UK. Would be interested in what you find out about using it overseas.

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[Robert Clark]

Haven't looked into 3 mifi costs \ availability on the Continent yet but currently using a 3gb for £10 in UK. Would be interested in what you find out about using it overseas.

We're off to Norway in 3 weeks so will be able to do a good test - will report back

 

[Gellyneck]

We're off to Norway in 3 weeks so will be able to do a good test - will report back

Excellent. Enjoy.

 

[Theonlysue]

I've downloaded camper contact and paid for it.
The paid version downloads to your phone/tablet, and the best thing Is, you don't need wifi for it. You get all the info including pics.

 

[Robert Clark]

I've downloaded camper contact and paid for it.
The paid version downloads to your phone/tablet, and the best thing Is, you don't need wifi for it. You get all the info including pics.

Exactly right, but if you're offline the maps are not as good and with the online web version all the reviews are translated into English whereas on the App they are not.
A small point I know, but I do like to read the reviews if poss

 

[Theonlysue]

I find the map ok, but you're correct about the reviews. I would just go by the score. Anything above 5 acceptable.
We are at one in Portugal at the moment scored 7, but I would give it 9. Well cared for. Very clean. Great views.All facilities and you wake up to the birds lol

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[Robert Clark]

I find the map ok, but you're correct about the reviews. I would just go by the score. Anything above 5 acceptable.
We are at one in Portugal at the moment scored 7, but I would give it 9. Well cared for. Very clean. Great views.All facilities and you wake up to the birds lol

We've been working just on the score, like you suggest and it seems to work out just fine.
I set our minimum score as 7 and have found more than enough aires to choose from.
Have you tried using the 'Near Me Now' function on Tripadvisor app?
It's been a great way of finding places to visit and local restaurants once you've arrived somewhere.
Glad you're enjoying Portugal. We've just booked our December crossing and plan to visit Spain and Potyugal in search of some January sun

 

[DBK]

Worth also looking at the date of reviews in CC. We were about to go to an Aire in Northern Spain this week, graded over 7 in the app but the two reviews from 2015 were a 1 and a 2. I couldn't understand the Cloggie but clearly something had changed. In a spirit of discovery we probably should have gone and written an English language review - but we didn't and went somewhere else!

 

[Robert Clark]

Worth also looking at the date of reviews in CC. We were about to go to an Aire in Northern Spain this week, graded over 7 in the app but the two reviews from 2015 were a 1 and a 2. I couldn't understand the Cloggie but clearly something had changed. In a spirit of discovery we probably should have gone and written an English language review - but we didn't and went somewhere else!

That's why I like to read the reviews if possible do I can decide if the comments made are simply spiteful / unrealistic or if there is a real problem