Holmes Hacks #1: Switching Plans to Cover You While Traveling

Welcome to the first edition of a series we’re calling “Holmes Hacks,” where I highlight a hidden strategy for saving money on your wireless bill. 

The common advice you’ll hear is that you have two options for using talk, text, and data while you’re traveling abroad: either buy a local SIM card in your destination, or pay a daily usage fee to your carrier. 

These daily fees can really add up if you’re overseas for an extended period of time: Verizon and AT&T both charge $12/day, while T-Mobile charges $5/day for a high-speed pass. 

So, if you’re in, say, Western Europe for 10 days and you want to use your Verizon plan, you’ll accrue a bill of $120–and that’s on top of your baseline plan cost.

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Thankfully, there’s a way around this: you can just switch to a plan that offers international usage privileges for the month you’re out of the country, then switch back when you return. 

Verizon

For example, I’m on Verizon’s Unlimited Welcome plan, which costs $65/month for a single line and lacks any international usage perks beyond Mexico and Canada. I’m traveling to Germany in September, and I plan on simply switching over to the carrier’s Unlimited Ultimate plan for that month. This option includes unlimited talk, text, and 10GB/month of high-speed data to use abroad, which should be enough to keep me connected during my two-week journey. 

AT&T

The same idea works for AT&T—if you’re on a lower-tier plan like Value 2.0 ($50/month), you can switch over to Elite 2.0 ($110/month) and you’ll have access to unlimited talk, text, and 20GB of data in 208+ countries—just double-check that the ones you’re traveling to are covered. 

T-Mobile

T-Mobile is a bit of an outlier here, since the carrier’s lower-tier and midrange plans already include some travel perks. For example, the Essentials plan ($60/month) features unlimited texting in 210+ countries, while the plan that’s one tier up, Experience More ($85/month) adds on 5GB/month of high-speed data in these same places. If that amount doesn't cut it, though, you can switch over to the premium Experience Beyond ($100/month) plan, which includes 15GB/month of high-speed data overseas. 

Final Thoughts

I wish I had known about this hack before I traveled to Europe last summer. I ended up paying for a handful of travel days from Verizon, and spent the rest of the time trying to get my Vodafone travel SIM to work (it finally did with about three days left on my trip). I can attest firsthand that it gets annoying having to seek out a WiFi signal everywhere you go so you can actually use your phone’s internet. 

Either way, we hope this hack helps you save money the next time you hop a flight to a foreign destination. Don’t forget to check back for future wireless hacks.