AT&T International Day Pass - as good as it seems?

[ravic]

I will be trying this out in 10 days

We are a family of 4 travelling to France and Italy for 10 days

My plan is to enable this just on my iphone 7 and used the personal hotspot for the other two iphone 7. All phones are locked to ATT , so using another sim is not even an option

Of course you can use other phones but the point here is to use our iPhones normally as we would

I will post my results once we get back

Hoping that personal hotspot works. I did not read any restrictions as such on that feature

 

[Paco II]

A co-worker just got back from Italy. Said it worked great. No issues and decent internet speeds. They too used the hotspot feature in their phone to share internet with other phones in their group.

 

[chillenandy321]

It worked perfect being in Sint Maarten for 7 nights a few weeks ago. Fast LTE speeds

 

[Paco II]

Anyone happen to know if FAN discounts apply towards the day pass? I hope yes, but if someone can verify that would be great

 

[ravic]

Paco II,

Excellent. Great to know the hotspot feature works. I have FAN discount on my account but doubt it will work for this feature. I will know in a month.

 

[thelookingglass]

As far as I'm concerned, TMO is the big winner here. The free global data roaming is probably the biggest reason we stay with them. I've pretty much been around the globe in the last year on business and it's worked flawlessly. Yes, the speed is slow, but it's definitely good enough in a pinch and for the basic stuff like messaging. Turns out that because the data is free, you can just use FaceTime (audio or video) for calls with family/friends. So I end up using FaceTime via cellular more overseas than I do in the US.

 

[Paco II]

No question that the free data is a nice perk of TMO. However, this offering from AT&T seems pretty excellent, especially if you need to make phone calls to non iOS users, and if you need higher speed data. Since AT&T does not offer free slow data, this option from AT&T is much better than their Passport offering. Also, being cable to call not just back to US, but also all included countries is also pretty excellent.

As far as I'm concerned, TMO is the big winner here. The free global data roaming is probably the biggest reason we stay with them. I've pretty much been around the globe in the last year on business and it's worked flawlessly. Yes, the speed is slow, but it's definitely good enough in a pinch and for the basic stuff like messaging. Turns out that because the data is free, you can just use FaceTime (audio or video) for calls with family/friends. So I end up using FaceTime via cellular more overseas than I do in the US.

 

[lah]

I wish ATT had this in early January when I was in Europe for work. What would have come out to 40 dollars came out to 80 dollars (including tax) for that BS passport plan they offer.

 

[jhearty99]

This plan sounds awesome. Went to Bermuda last year and didnt even bother signing up for the Passport Plan with the 200mb data. Going back to Bermuda later this year and this plan is a no brainer.

 

[ravic]

Yes
We used in France and Italy
LTE speeds across the board and we were able to use personal hotspot to connect other phones to the internet and make phone calls via wifi

 

[Paco II]

In Paris at the moment. Cellular has been great. Hotspots have been hit and miss for me.

Yes
We used in France and Italy
LTE speeds across the board and we were able to use personal hotspot to connect other phones to the internet and make phone calls via wifi

 

[avanpelt]

As an aside for anyone traveling to Canada or Mexico, before you consider going the International Day Pass route, I would call AT&T retentions and ask them to add Roam North America to your account.

They gladly added it to my wife and I's Mobile Share plan a few weeks ago to replace the Canada and Mexico Roaming Bonuses we had previously. My mother was also able to get Roam North America added to her Mobile Share plan this past weekend. It seems like retentions is pretty liberal in terms of adding that feature to Mobile Share plans right now.

 

[Mlrollin91]

Why do you say that? AT&T told me it is available on my legacy grandfathered plan.

Definitely not available for legacy grandfathered plans. One of the reasons why I switched the Unlimited Plus. It is only available for Mobile share plans. No old talk/text plans worked with Day Pass.

 

[AlliFlowers]

As an aside for anyone traveling to Canada or Mexico, before you consider going the International Day Pass route, I would call AT&T retentions and ask them to add Roam North America to your account.

They gladly added it to my wife and I's Mobile Share plan a few weeks ago to replace the Canada and Mexico Roaming Bonuses we had previously. My mother was also able to get Roam North America added to her Mobile Share plan this past weekend. It seems like retentions is pretty liberal in terms of adding that feature to Mobile Share plans right now.

What's the difference between the Roam North America and the Canada/Mexico roaming?

 

[Paco II]

Retentions shut me down when I just tried. Will HUAC another time, but fyi. Told it was only available to unlimited plans.

As an aside for anyone traveling to Canada or Mexico, before you consider going the International Day Pass route, I would call AT&T retentions and ask them to add Roam North America to your account.

They gladly added it to my wife and I's Mobile Share plan a few weeks ago to replace the Canada and Mexico Roaming Bonuses we had previously. My mother was also able to get Roam North America added to her Mobile Share plan this past weekend. It seems like retentions is pretty liberal in terms of adding that feature to Mobile Share plans right now.

 

[avanpelt]

What's the difference between the Roam North America and the Canada/Mexico roaming?

Roam North America allows you to use your entire data bucket in Canada and Mexico, not just the 1 GB per device that the Roaming Bonuses allowed.
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Retentions shut me down when I just tried. Will HUAC another time, but fyi. Told it was only available to unlimited plans.

Yep, try again.

 

[ram161]

When I was in Europe Italy, UK, France & Spain for 20 days I had LTE speeds 98% of my time there - I used the AT&T international pass worked flawlessly it would sometimes connect to 3G if you were in a rural area. My friend had her Global T-Mobile data and I can say it was super slow and sketchy the whole time...You get what you pay for.

 

[Analog Kid]

Anyone have any luck getting this turned on for an iPad? It only shows available for my iPhone...

 

[swiftaw]

Anyone have any luck getting this turned on for an iPad? It only shows available for my iPhone...

I have two questions

1) I assume you would have to turn on Data Roaming on the iPhone?

2) What activity triggers the $10/day charge, is it any phone activity, or just any cellular activity? For example, when I go visit my parents in Europe, there are some days that I don't leave their house which has wifi, so on those days if I put the phone in Airplane mode and then turn jut the wifi and bluetooth back on (leaving the cellular connection off) will I be charged the $10?

 

[Analog Kid]

I have two questions

1) I assume you would have to turn on Data Roaming on the iPhone?

2) What activity triggers the $10/day charge, is it any phone activity, or just any cellular activity? For example, when I go visit my parents in Europe, there are some days that I don't leave their house which has wifi, so on those days if I put the phone in Airplane mode and then turn jut the wifi and bluetooth back on (leaving the cellular connection off) will I be charged the $10?

I don't believe you'll be charged if you don't access the network. That kind of makes sense since they don't know you're there until you connect that day...

And I'm pretty sure you do need to turn on roaming-- but I didn't experiment much. In my case I used it the day I arrived until I could buy a local SIM... $10 is a pretty good deal for a day. $10 a day for a week starts to get steep.

 

[Paco II]

Overall I was very happy using it for a few days in Paris. Only annoying thing is that your phone bill taxes are based on your bill amount. So you are really paying more than $10/day. If multiple days, significantly more than $10/day.

 

[mark34]

The $10 deal is a huge step in the right direction for AT&T. I have typically rented MiFi devices when I travel abroad. This is much easier, especially for business. Once you sign up it automatically kicks in. I've only used it once and it worked as advertised. I suspect that competition will keep driving down the price.

 

[sjinsjca]

Update: I've been using AT&T's International Day Pass in intensive international travels in Asia, the Middle East and Europe since February. It is flipping marvelous. I used to blow through the largest-available $120 Passport in four or five days of careful usage, and calls were pretty costly on top of that. By comparison, five days of International Day Pass costs me $50 and includes texts and voice calls, and I don't have to think about my usage at all!

Now I can use my iPhone as I do at home with no worries, and no high per-minute call fees either. Callers can just ring me as usual on my familiar phone number. Everything works just like at home.

I can now afford to tether my MacBook Pro and iPad to my phone; no problems and no hitches, aside from the crappy Edge connectivity and dead-zones in some places, especially in Europe. (But, rental MiFis that I previously would procure on arrival in Europe had the same issues in the same places, so that isn't an AT&T problem.) Those MiFis would run me about $50 for a typical four-to-five-day trip, so a Passport plus one of those was a ghastly $170! And the MiFis would start to throttle at about 800MB, or sometimes seemingly just for the hell of it. I don't miss them or their fluky behavior; they can go ahead and die in a fire now.

This is so much better than the previous Passport arrangement! Recommended.

The convenience of being able to step off a plane and immediately get to work without a care is brilliant. Kudos to AT&T and Verizon for offering this. Kudos to Verizon for coming up with it first, and to AT&T for rising to the competitive offering-- it literally kept me as a customer. Even bigger kudos to T-Mobile for what sounds like an amazing roaming policy, per other posters here. I hope that's the next step for both AT&T and Verizon!

 

[Paco II]

I do think it is a great option, but I'll refer to my 6/1 post that the cost turns out to be more than $10/day, since phone bill taxes are based on total bill, including the $10/day. So if used for multiple days, that additional tax increase can be significant. Nothing illicit that AT&T are doing, just a call out on that.

 

[giancarlo007]

I think it's awesome! Just came back from a three week trip in India and I used my phone like I do at home plus a LOT of calls than otherwise would have costed me a fortune!

Taxes come with everything you buy so I don't care about that.

Well done AT&T!