I hope I don’t sound like one of those agitated new forum members who just gets on the forum to vent about an awful experience and then goes away and never comes back. I am agitated and I do want to vent, though!
When I go to the Camino, I always get a Spanish sim card and have never had a problem. Great price, tons of data, great phone service.
For three different international non-camino trips now, I have paid for Verizon’s $100/billing cycle International Plan.
Two of the trips were last year. My husband came with me and it just seemed like the easiest way to keep in touch with him when we were in different places. And since there were two phones with this plan, the cost was $200/billing cycle. The plans failed spectacularly, and both times Verizon refunded my payments. (They can see every time you dial, so they can corroborate whether the plan was working or not).
I have just returned from a trip to Portugal. My husband stayed home, and though I was extremely reluctant to go with Verizon again, the customer service rep on the phone was so confident and supportive that I thought it would be the easiest way for me to have phone service in Portugal, both for calls to Portugal and calls to the US. And the easiest way for my husband to be in touch with me. And the easiest way to use data when I wasn’t on wireless.
The plan supposedly comes with 20GB of high speed data, lots of minutes, everything I would need.
NOTHING worked.
Calling the US — I was able to make one call to the US. Every other time, the call either didn’t connect or I got a recording in Portuguese telling me that my plan didn’t allow this call.
Calling Portugal — I was also able to make one call within Portugal. This was to reserve a room in a place in Santarém, where I was walking. I had to call to confirm before noon on the day of my pre-paid reservation because they wanted to know when to come open up for me. I was never able to contact them, despite calling at least 30 times. So I lost my $$ and had to find somewhere else to stay when I got there.
Data - I was occasionally able to use data to get an Uber, but many times had to go into hotels in random places and ask to use their wifi. And even when my phone showed I had LTE service, I could never connect to the Internet with that service. And frequently the phone showed E service. This happened regularly not only in small places out of town but also in Lisbon. I had data turned off whenever I wasn’t using it just to be sure I wouldn’t go through my GB allotment. But I was never once able to connect to the internet on data while I was there.
I know some forum members have used this plan, and I hope their experience has been better than this, but I have to say there is no way that I would ever consider using this Verizon plan again. In fact, I am so peeved I’m going to start investigating switching carriers completely!
Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me; fool me three times, I am an idiot!
Well, I hope this post serves two purposes — one, a way for me to vent; and two, a way for other forum members to avoid this issue.
When I go to the Camino, I always get a Spanish sim card and have never had a problem. Great price, tons of data, great phone service.
For three different international non-camino trips now, I have paid for Verizon’s $100/billing cycle International Plan.
Two of the trips were last year. My husband came with me and it just seemed like the easiest way to keep in touch with him when we were in different places. And since there were two phones with this plan, the cost was $200/billing cycle. The plans failed spectacularly, and both times Verizon refunded my payments. (They can see every time you dial, so they can corroborate whether the plan was working or not).
I have just returned from a trip to Portugal. My husband stayed home, and though I was extremely reluctant to go with Verizon again, the customer service rep on the phone was so confident and supportive that I thought it would be the easiest way for me to have phone service in Portugal, both for calls to Portugal and calls to the US. And the easiest way for my husband to be in touch with me. And the easiest way to use data when I wasn’t on wireless.
The plan supposedly comes with 20GB of high speed data, lots of minutes, everything I would need.
NOTHING worked.
Calling the US — I was able to make one call to the US. Every other time, the call either didn’t connect or I got a recording in Portuguese telling me that my plan didn’t allow this call.
Calling Portugal — I was also able to make one call within Portugal. This was to reserve a room in a place in Santarém, where I was walking. I had to call to confirm before noon on the day of my pre-paid reservation because they wanted to know when to come open up for me. I was never able to contact them, despite calling at least 30 times. So I lost my $$ and had to find somewhere else to stay when I got there.
Data - I was occasionally able to use data to get an Uber, but many times had to go into hotels in random places and ask to use their wifi. And even when my phone showed I had LTE service, I could never connect to the Internet with that service. And frequently the phone showed E service. This happened regularly not only in small places out of town but also in Lisbon. I had data turned off whenever I wasn’t using it just to be sure I wouldn’t go through my GB allotment. But I was never once able to connect to the internet on data while I was there.
I know some forum members have used this plan, and I hope their experience has been better than this, but I have to say there is no way that I would ever consider using this Verizon plan again. In fact, I am so peeved I’m going to start investigating switching carriers completely!
Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me; fool me three times, I am an idiot!
Well, I hope this post serves two purposes — one, a way for me to vent; and two, a way for other forum members to avoid this issue.
I would have been cranky too having to find wifi 
to communicate after having paid 200€ to Verizon
