Vodafone Travel Promise

[snaimon]

Why is the VODAFONE Travel Promise different in each country?

Example: Germany allows inbound calls for a cost 75 E-cents up to 60 min. THAT is not bad or what do you think? I am thinking of buying a Vodafone German card.; they are cheaper than the international cards.

Malta allows 50 L-cents (~ 1 Euro & sorry, that is probably not right currency description) for 10 min. That is not as good as the German rate. I have a Vodafone-Malta card already.

Going to Germany and Malta this summer. Just asking?

Considering that the T-Mobile Germany rates for inbound are 69 E-cents per minute in most places..... those are still bargain prices.

I can't figure out whether I am short a card or not. Older son (22), who seems to be addicted to SMSing, says he in not interested in a cell phone, not interested in SMSing while we are in Europe. SO... I sold my backup ECO WORLD SIM based on that remark. TRUE, that is not the SIM for SMSing. But he may wander off on his own and EITHER we will want to reach him or he will want to reach us. If I can activate the Vodafone-Malta Travel Promise in Germany, he may be using that card all the time.

Any thoughts or comments?

Stan

[Motel75]

It just depends where you're going. SIM cards can be very cheap. In Poland you can get Heyah for 5 Zl, about $1.50, with 5 Zl credit. I recently bought a Vodafone prepaid card with basic Sagem phone for 10 ?, including 12.50 credit. Roaming very seldom makes sense on a trip of more than a couple of days if you plan to do some calling.

As far as Vodafone's Travel Promise (ReiseVersprechen in DE) goes, it can be somewhat MORE expensive for calls of one minute (or two, in some cases), which is about as long as a typical German phone call lasts, though it makes sense with calls of 2-3 min or longer.

[snaimon]

Originally Posted by Motel75

It just depends where you're going. SIM cards can be very cheap. In Poland you can get Heyah for 5 Zl, about $1.50, with 5 Zl credit. I recently bought a Vodafone prepaid card with basic Sagem phone for 10 ?, including 12.50 credit. Roaming very seldom makes sense on a trip of more than a couple of days if you plan to do some calling.

As far as Vodafone's Travel Promise (ReiseVersprechen in DE) goes, it can be somewhat MORE expensive for calls of one minute (or two, in some cases), which is about as long as a typical German phone call lasts, though it makes sense with calls of 2-3 min or longer.

Thanks for the reply and info.

Malta and Germany are the destinations, 50 - 50 split in time. The card would be for my older son and I would expect his girlfriend to call him and the calls to be longer than 2 - 3 minutes while in Malta or Germany.

Do you know anything about D2 cards and debitel? Can buy a used debitel D2 card on Ebay with low balance for very little money. Seller says the card is already registered and does NOT know the tarif class. So can I change tarifs or ADD Reiseversprechen even if I am NOT the registered owner? It SEEMS from my research that I would need some info from the registered owner to transfer the account to my name.

As I wrote, I am not sure I will do this. The best current alternative is to give the older boy an Xtra card for Germany and a Malta card for Malta; of course that is 2 numbers and may confuse the girl friend.

I can wait until I arrive in Germany in 4 weeks where I would buy a new starter pack.

Stan

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by Motel75

It just depends where you're going. SIM cards can be very cheap. In Poland you can get Heyah for 5 Zl, about $1.50, with 5 Zl credit. I recently bought a Vodafone prepaid card with basic Sagem phone for 10 ?, including 12.50 credit. Roaming very seldom makes sense on a trip of more than a couple of days if you plan to do some calling.

AFAIK "small" Heyah SIM contains 4 PLN of credit. Never mind, in fact nowadays you can buy a Polish prepaid SIM of any brand for no more than 10 PLN (although there are also more expensive versions on sale for 20 PLN). The initial credit you receive is 80-120% of the price of a SIM. However, whereas local rates are quite nice, international aren't. Heyah is cheaper than using a public payphone for international calls, but e.g. GT-sim roaming in Poland is cheaper than Heyah nothing to say about other prepaid SIMs. I wouldn't be surprised if using some "national" SIMs in roaming were cheaper too.

[Motel75]

Yes, Heyah comes with 4 Zl, I was off slightly, though my point is the same: SIM cards are cheap. Sorry I wasn't clear about the original post; I mentioned Heyah as an example of the cheapest useful SIM anywhere. I don't know about Malta, though.

As far as Germany goes, I wouldn't bother with a used D2 (ie, Vodafone) SIM on eBay if the seller knows nothing about it. Just get a new one in Germany from somewhere other than an official Vodafone store (which tend to be expensive). Big department stores sometimes have low prices on mobiles including SIM that can be less than a SIM pack at a Vodafone store (such as the aforementioned Sagem, which I got at Quelle).

Old Voda (D2 Privat) prepaid cards sometimes have better rates than the present ones, and 10-second billing, which they have since abolished for prepaid (and those with it had to send an SMS to Vodafone to prevent this from being removed). However, with any Vodafone card, the first change of tariff is free, but all subsequent ones are 5?, so you're better off with a new one. However, new cards usually come with CallYa Basic (39 cents per minute in all networks, 69 cents to other mobiles), which is not such a good value for most people, so you probably will want to change it.

One option for a group or family coming to Germany in the next few weeks is for everyone to buy an smobil card at the local Schlecker store, as the smobil-to-smobil rate is 1 cent (but limited to 200 min per month, and only till September or so).

However, for longer-term users, or those wishing to return every year and a half or so, smobil might be less desirable compared to Aldi Talk, which has lower overall rates (15 cents to all networks and only 5c between Aldi Talk users), and which also allows validity to add up to two years, whereas smobil (and Vodafone Compact, etc) restart it when you recharge (max 6 months or less). Recharges are only available at German Aldi stores, though possibly on eBay as well.

Alternatively, simyo lets you recharge with a credit card, but has no lower simyo-to-simyo rate.

(Since I mention it, restarting the validity with each recharge is also the policy on all Polish cards except for Heyah and Era Tak Tak, which is why I use Heyah: you can add it up to 1 year validity, though the minimum spend per year is 200 Zl, or 50?, more than twice that of normal German prepaids, 20?.)

[Motel75]

Forgot to mention, almost all German prepaids have extortionate international call prices (usually all destinations 2? per minute), with no evident desire on the part of the operators to lower the rate for competitive advantage. The exceptions are Ay Yildiz (but only to Turkey, otherwise 2? as usual) and Blau World (cheap to a lot of poor countries and, for example, Poland and Japan, but 99 cents to France, Britain, the US, etc.) This is compared to a typical international call price of 35-60 cents elsewhere in Europe. I was expecting some operators might have changed this for the World Cup, but no. Vodafone are marketing a prepaid offer to visiting football fans (Moto phone plus 5? credit for 33?, relatively cheap for their stores but not compared to elsewhere), but that means two and a half minutes of calling home. Simply using roaming would be half as expensive for most European users.

[AndreA]

Originally Posted by snaimon

Why is the VODAFONE Travel Promise different in each country?

And why Vodafone Italy has the highest price?

Well, I think that they studied their customers in every country and they tried to configure a different offer for each one. Now this can be almost ridicolous if you compare the different option between different Vodafone companies, but the "normal user" never check it so... this is the result