Optus $10 a day travel pack... gamechanger!

[MelbMan]

Just back from a combined 27 day business conference trip and vacation overseas. At the last minute arranged a $10 day Optus Travel pack which is a quick add on if you're an Optus pre-paid customer.
Covers unlimited incoming and outgoing calls and SMS & 50MB a day. The 50MB is coughulative, that is you can use all your allowance on day I if you wish or progressively.

So for my 27 days in Italy, Poland, Greece, Singapore and short transit through Doha airport? All these countries are in Optus Zone 1 apart from Qatar where I incurred a $2.23 cost for some browsing. Over the 27 days, 118 calls totalling 6 hours 58 mins worth of incoming and outgoing calls, 93 text messages and 556MB data. Over the 27 days I had 1.35GB to use. Each call, SMS, browsing session itemized with day, time and network used.

Quite a few places we stayed had WIFI but most of these I stuck with the Optus 3G and 4G mobile network partners. The calls especially from Greece where clearer than from home and the internet and uploading was also quicker.

The Optus Travel pack worked brilliantly. For a business $10 a day was a small cost. I really noticed this time that you need the mobility of a roaming mobile, in the past I'd made do with Skype which of course means you have to be anchored to a WIFI hotspot somewhere. This time hotels wanted to contact us, car rental companies, Google Maps was handy even though we were carrying our own TomTom World Traveller GPS and a lot of our hotel bookings (Booking.com) the records are digital on your phone rather than paper. Carrying 2 IPhones I used the personal hotspot quite a few times to upload pictures to FB etc on the second phone (an IP 6+)

As usual I found some of the hotel WIFIs where we stayed a nuisance, having to sign in all the time. My GMail account did not like one conference WIFI sytem and one hotel system...

So highly recommend Optus Travel pack for their Zone 1 countries. Zone 2 remains a problem in that they do not offer this. Next year off for a conference to Uruguay which is Zone 2 so will have to address this closer to the time.

I have another facility ICommo that allows you to divert your landline to their number and then you get an email with the voicemessage attached. About to cancel this now.
Thanks Optus for the Zone 1 travel pack. Please do some work on Zone 2 countries!



John

 

[TheInsider]

$270 plus what ever you pay for the phone. No thanks.

 

[opusman]

Don't vodafone do this for $5 / day ?

 

[Mattg]

This might be alright for a few days, but I would think that for anything over a week, you'd be better off buying a local SIM card. Then you only pay local rates.

 

[Cruiser Elite]

Don't vodafone do this for $5 / day ?

Yes they do $5/day and only payable on days actually used. Unless Optus have tweaked theirs - initially it was $10/day every day whilst activated even you did not use it during that period - you had to turn it off again once your trip was completed - that was when first launched so maybe had been changed.

This might be alright for a few days, but I would think that for anything over a week, you'd be better off buying a local SIM card. Then you only pay local rates.

The beauty of the Vodafone Red Roam is that you retain your number - when o/s locals in Australia still only pay normal rates to contact you - it is seamless - best thing since sliced bread IMHO.

 

[MelbMan]

The cost is a personal perspective methinks. $270, peanuts when the phone is running a business as well. Being able to phone clients, take calls, while on the move...brilliant. In 2011 I had a UK Vodafone simcard in a BB and found the flexibility of this good as well. But with a BB it took hours at the shop to get this going plus the time to find the shop in the first place. But back then was running with a random phone number not my regular mobile number. And while this was supposed to roam in Portugal as well it did not work as well down there and you still had to topup. So for me the Optus Travel pack was the far better choice particular with the different countries we visited this trip. And like Vodafone it seems... seamless. It's hard to put a price on seamless

 

[Cruiser Elite]

MelbMan 100% correct on the seamless - to think 3 or 4 years back I would have 6 or 8 diff SIM cards in my travel wallet and always needed 2 phones - not anymore.

 

[clazman]

And as always Telstra are expensive

 

[hummel]

MelbMan 100% correct on the seamless - to think 3 or 4 years back I would have 6 or 8 diff SIM cards in my travel wallet and always needed 2 phones - not anymore.

Pretty good these days ey!

We have 2 Vodafone sim/handsets with the $5/day...1 stays in aus and one in China.

Got a Vietnam sim here at the moment. Paid ~$6 2 weeks ago using data everywhere and no issues.

 

[Warks]

And as always Telstra are expensive

Yes a criminal rip-off if you use data overseas and even if you get their so called data pack it is still ridiculously expensive. I guess they make more dough out of being sharks so can't be bothered with offering an equitable deal.

 

[Cruiser Elite]

Yes a criminal rip-off if you use data overseas and even if you get their so called data pack it is still ridiculously expensive. I guess they make more dough out of being sharks so can't be bothered with offering an equitable deal.

But is not Telstra same as QF - the masses just will not try others for fear of the unknown?

OK fire the bullets - I can take it.

 

[Freq Flier 2013]

On my recent trip I used the $10 per day but got to select the days I wanted to use it.

Ie I used it only on Thur and Fri for work and used hotel wifi for skype ect... personal calls over the weekend. Worked great and did not cost a fortune.

I then used it part of the following week ie Mon to Wed when I was going to be making a lot of phone calls.

 

[clazman]

But is not Telstra same as QF - the masses just will not try others for fear of the unknown?

OK fire the bullets - I can take it.

Sadly for us in the mining game.... when we go bush we have a choice of Telstra or no phone service.

Being close to a two million dollar a year spend with telstra, i hate them with a passion.... they provide no service, take months to carry out work and charge like wounded bulls.

 

[MelbMan]

Yes selective days is a a cost cutter. In my case travelling and having clients in a lot of different time zones I adopted an "all in" (7 days a week approach). One positive from this trip is that I can now vacation in Zone 1 Optus countries.. International Roaming Rates-on a Plan - Optus Travel

I guess you could order Travel Pack days as needed from the Optus app? But I guess the days you're ordering are Australian times not o/s ones so you'd need to take that into account if say being in Europe, calls might have to finish at 4pm (midnight Aussie time) otherwise you'd be into the next day?

 

[equus]

Another improvement on this one.

Just before Christmas, time came around again to upgrade phones (have been with Optus for ages). Went for the iPhone 6S (didn't want the plus). Have always just put the phone on the plan, over 2 years.

Haven't looked for a while, so was surprised that the plans have changed a bit (on the small business plans), with all the price points now containing unlimited talk and SMS - the differentiators now being amount of data, and then for the higher prices - other additions - like International calls. The highest price point $135 per month - but on "special" at the time for $100 per month for the life of the plan, offered 500 minutes a month of International calls, and 10 Days of Travel Pack. As we were about to head to HKG for Christmas, this looked like a nice extra - but I had to ask whether the 10 days was per year, or for the contract (2 years), only to be gob-smacked to be told that is was per billing cycle - so per month!

The plan also included 20Gb of data - which could be shared between devices on the plan. So 2 phones gave us 40Gb of data a month. Whilst the $100 per phone is high, the 2 iPad data plans were cancelled (for a one-off $5 fee to convert to a "data-share SIM plan), and share the data. Considering that the plan included a 64Gb iPhone 6S, and overall, I walked out paying less per month, with more data, and up to 10 days a month of Data pack for free, I was quite happy.

For someone making shortish but regular trips, these plans would be worth a look.

 

[exceladdict]

With telstra prepaid (which we are on, also for reception reasons), a $29 travel pack (which comes from our regular credit - which in turn had built up over months of recharging) bought me 100mb of data which got me through two weeks in the Philippines, when wi-fi was not avail. Any urgent call/credits also came from the regular built-up credit, so it was effectively no additional cost for Mrs Excel or I.

 

[Bali Belly]

This might be alright for a few days, but I would think that for anything over a week, you'd be better off buying a local SIM card. Then you only pay local rates.

Local Sim cards always work out cheaper to call back to Aus data rates can be hit or miss

 

[MelbMan]

Equus like you I took up the Optus $135 plan discounted to $100. I have an IP 6+ on contract until Nov 16 and an IP5 which I mainly use for calls out of contract but with the Optus sim in it. So like you I was going to upgrade to a 6S with 128GB. These are out of stock at the moment so what Optus have done is upgraded my current plan and backdated from mid Dec 15. If I don't take the new phone will simply continue the current contract to Nov. If take the new phone it's about $350 to cancel out the old contract.

Main attraction for me was the 500 free international minutes. Quite a few clients o/s and Skype quality tends to anchor you close to your home wifi point and the call quality is very average. Already a few days into this plan I'm loving the international minutes. The Travel pack is certainly a bonus. I'm off to Sth America mid 2016 which unfortunately is Zone 2 and not covered. But hoping given time this wil change. Can see from the latest Jan 16 Optus mag that this $135 plan is now $130 with about 16G, unlimited international minutes but no travel pack..

My European trip mid 2015 convinced me you need to be able to use your mobile when travelling these days. I look forward to using the included travel pack in 2016. 20GB data is massive but guess if staying somewhere in Australia you could always stream in some Netflix using the phone as a hotspot

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Local Sim cards always work out cheaper to call back to Aus data rates can be hit or miss

Yes but can one get a SIM with good data easily in France yet?

 

[MelbMan]

Once you've used a Travel pack, I'm pretty sure the inconvenience of local simcards, getting them up and running, having a number no-one knows, etc will see going that route a bit like callback o/s phonecalls were about 20 years ago. True I'm in business for myself and the business pays for my phone and calls. But it would be a very boring world if we all did the same and though the same. YVMV.