Staying connected while traveling abroad is important for a lot of people.
How will you be able to communicate with your family?
Post your Instagram photos? What happens if part of your luggage gets lost and you need to call the airlines to get everything sorted out?
Or how will you communicate with your Airbnb hosts?
When you’ve saved up your money for a fun vacation in an exotic location or new country, the last thing you want to worry about is your cell phone bill and racking up expensive overage charges. And trust me, for many carriers international data is expensive.
Thankfully, Reach Mobile has a new approach to providing international data usage is affordable and flexible. And it even includes the company’s “best-fit” policy, which means you won’t be charged for cellular data you don’t use rounded to the nearest 0.5GB.
Say you and your family of four are planning a week-long trip to Spain for vacation. (Lucky you!). The first thing you do with Reach Mobile is set the dates of your trip. Set your departure data and your return date. This lets Reach know when to activate your international data and when to turn it off.
Next, you purchase data packs for each line you want to have data access. Most countries in Reach’s 135+ total supported countries offer Reach Mobile’s discounted data pack, which is $5 per 500MB. You can purchase as many data packs you think you’ll need on a per-line basis. So mom and dad can get more data packs for planning the trip, while the kids can get fewer (or no!) data packs because they likely won’t need as much cellular data.
Thankfully there is also no need to worry about adding too much data thanks to Reach Mobile’s “best fit” policy. What “best-fit” means is you’re only charged for the data you use, rounded to the nearest 0.5GB. If you add 5GB but use 1.2GB, you'll only be charged for 1.5GB of data usage.
The best part is this data will last you the whole trip! Unlike Verizon and AT&T, which charge you $10 per day for high speed international data access, Reach Mobile’s $5/500MB passes are valid for the entire duration of your trip. Spending $10 for 1GB of data for your week in Spain is a LOT better than spending $70 to get high speed data access each day.
Text messages and voice calls you send and receive are charged pay-as-you-go rates for each country. You can check the international talk, text, and data rates on Reach Mobile’s international data roaming page.
Calling rates appear to vary by country. For example, Australia charges $0.11 per minute, while making a call on your fictitious trip to Spain would only cost you $0.05 per minute.
Incoming and outgoing text messages, on the other hand, appear to have the same rates for all countries. You’ll pay $0.05 for each text you receive and $0.44 for each text you send.
There are also a few countries that are not eligible for Reach Mobile’s discounted data pack. For example, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. These countries charge pay-as-you-go rates for data too, along with rates for minutes and texts. Unfortunately, these data rates can be expensive. Afghanistan’s international data rates is $552.78 per 500MB and Bangladesh’s rate is $33.92 per 500MB.
To prevent you from accruing accidental or unexpected charges for pay-as-you-go minutes, texts, and data, Reach Mobile lets you set a budget for your trip. International calls, texts, and data are deducted from your budget at their corresponding rates.
Setting a budget means you’ll know exactly how much your maximum bill will be if you happen to use your phone more than you expect. You can also set a data limit so you stay within your international data balance.
Reach Mobile’s simple solution to international data roaming makes it easy, affordable, and flexible to travel abroad while staying connected. Again, all you do is:
Check out all of Reach Mobile’s plans below, and see our Reach Mobile review to find out if they are a good fit for you.
Stetson graduated from Ithaca College in 2019 with a degree in Communication Management and Design. He launched BestPhonePlans.net as part a senior project in school. He loves helping people find great, affordable cell phone plans that meet their needs. When he’s not reviewing cell phone plans on his YouTube channel or website, Stetson is out hiking in the crisp Colorado air, playing board games with friends, or competing in an epic game of pickleball.