Airalo review: how I beat mobile roaming charges abroad using travel eSIMs

Using your phone abroad can quickly get expensive when you rely on your existing phone line.

Fortunately, a simple workaround has emerged in the past few years, enabled by new eSIM technology found in virtually all modern handsets.

For example, Vodafone will charge you £2.42 per day just to use your normal allowance in France. Outside of Europe it can be £5+ per day – Dubai is now £7.39 per day for Vodafone customers for example.

For EU roaming, O2 remains the best UK mobile network

O2 is now the only mobile network of the big four to include free roaming in Europe for all pay monthly customers. It’s one of the reasons I swapped a few years ago (although the signal in London is rubbish ….)

48 countries/territories/areas are included. The full list is on the O2 website here but basically it covers all of the EU and European Economic Area. Switzerland, for example, is included, as is Norway, despite neither being part of the EU.

Calls and texts to UK numbers are also free or charged at the same rate as they would be if you were in the UK. Calls to international numbers are separate – although O2 offers an paid-for ‘International Bolt On’ that reduces the cost of these too.

If you are on a monthly plan, you can use your data in O2’s Eurozone up to a maximum of 25GB (or less, if your plan includes fewer GBs.) Any data usage beyond this will be subject to throttling.

Outside of the four major carriers, you’ll also find free EU roaming on these virtual mobile networks:

• Asda Mobile (5GB fair use limit, uses Vodafone)
• GiffGaff (5GB fair use limit, uses O2)
• iD Mobile (30GB fair use limit, uses Three)
• Lebara (30GB fair use limit, uses Vodafone)
• Lycamobile (fair use limit varies, uses EE)
• Smarty (12GB fair use limit, uses Three)
• Superdrug Mobile (12GB fair use limit, uses Three)

Finding local eSIMs with Airalo

If you’re travelling beyond the European Union, or you’re with EE, Vodafone, Three or another network, then your best option is purchasing a local SIM card at your destination.

This has been made even easier with the introduction of eSIM across many mobile devices, including from 12th generation iPhones (the 2018 iPhone XR and XS). Samsung was a bit behind the curve and only introduced eSIMs to its 2020 Galaxy S20 phones but too are now standard.

Most handsets from the last 2-5 years come with dual SIM support, either in the form of two SIM card slots or a physical SIM slot and eSIM support.

That means you can now connect to two mobile networks at once – letting you retain your UK number and SIM whilst supplementing it with a local SIM depending on where you’re travelling.

eSIMs make this even easier because you don’t need to wait until you arrive at the airport or faff around with tiny SIM cards. You can simply scan a QR code to add a data plan to your phone.

This has led to a number of third party companies popping up to connect travellers with local SIM cards, including Airalo which is what I use.

Airalo – website here – bills itself as the world’s first eSIM store. It gives you access to 200+ eSIMs globally, including a range of local, regional and global SIM cards.

I have now used Airalo over fifty times and have been very impressed. The process is extremely simple, as demonstrated by this infographic:

In reality, you do not need even need to install the app. You can also use the web interface.

What I particularly like about Airalo and eSIMs is that I can install my international data plan before I leave the UK. This means I have a seamless data connection once I land at my destination. This is especially useful in case I need to show any documents on my phone but can’t connect to Wi-Fi.

How does Airalo work?

On Monday I am heading to the United States to try out Iberia’s new A321XLR aircraft in business class. This is unfortunately outside of my O2 free roaming destinations. Looking at Airalo, I have six options:

• 1GB with seven days validity for £4
• 2GB with 30 days validity for £7
• 3GB for 30 days validity for £9.50
• 5GB for 30 days validity for £13.50
• 10GB for 30 days validity for £21.50
• 20GB for 30 days validity for £35

In my experience, 1GB is enough data for a few days for basics such as mapping tools, email and browsing online. You’ll need more if you plan on streaming or watching video or photo-heavy content, obviously.

Airalo doesn’t actually manage the eSIM, it just connects you to the mobile network. In this case it’s a provider called ‘Change’ which piggy backs on both T-Mobile and Verizon’s 5G networks – two of the three major US carriers.

Once you purchase an eSIM on Airalo all you have to do is add it to your phone. Apple makes this very easy on iPhones – all you have to do is scan a QR code and enter a few settings and you’ll have local 5G data within 30 seconds or so.

After you fly home it’s just as easy to remove, by going into your settings and removing the data plan.

If you want to try Airalo, then you can use my referral code ‘RHYS4258’ when you sign up or at checkout to get $3 off. I’ll also get $3 off my next plan – thank you.

The Airalo website is here.