Any Advice for Obtaining French Cell Phone Sim Cards?

2»

Comments

  • edited July 2021

    I went into a Verizon store (a contract store like most of them) to ask questions. Before I had a chance to fully explained what I was trying to do, the rep I talked to said it was much cheaper and easier to take whatever phones I wanted, but just get local SIM cards for both from a provider at the airport in the destination country. I asked several times, but he claimed that Verizon's $10/day TravelPass fee was charged every day for the period of the contracted period, not only on the specific days it is used, 10 days $100.

    That is contradicts what it says on the Verizon website, "The daily fee is only charged on the days you use it in one of the TravelPass countries. TravelPass activates when you make or receive a call, connect to a data service or send a text. Another daily session will begin after the first 24-hour period expires. You can keep TravelPass on your account at no additional charge so it will be ready the next time your travels take you abroad." Also, the TravelPass list of countries does not include Jordan- that conflicts with MCD's experience and what I read elsewhere on the Verizon website!

    I would still need to activate another line for the second phone.

    As I mentioned in a previous post, the devices we have are compatible with CDMA and GSM but not both at the same time- they must be configured for one or the other by Apple for country of sale with a SIM card or eSIM. So, I still don't know whether our phones can be used as is. As Vinnie Barbarino would say, "I'm sooooo confuuuuzed."

    I think I will call Tauck to see if it possible to be picked up a bit later, to give us enough time to get SIM cards at an airport kiosk. Does any have experience getting a SIM card at the airport?

  • edited July 2021

    We have made several international trips using our Verizon phone. It is $10 per day for cell use. If you only use WiFi there is no charge for that day. If you make a cell call or use the internet on cell service you pay $10 for that day. Canada n Mexico are $5 per diem.

  • milmil
    edited July 2021

    SIM card? ,why? U.S carriers offer services when abroad.. ATT has the daily $10.00 pass - no data used ,unlimited text etc... it works for full 24 hours from the day you activate.. and only if you do, just make sure to cancel the service once back at home. or you can get the monthly passport for $60.00 flat rate, the only problem with this one it's that will cover up to 1G. You can also do Whatsapp , Viber, Facetime, Messenger,Skype. ALL FREE and from your phone. as long as there is Wifi- Hotels, Rest. and some Tauck busses have it.
    I always do the daily ATT pass and it works great.
    Verizon has it's own too .

  • Again, I will not have Wifi where I'm going (the Monastery and Wadi al Farasa in Petra)! I only need it for one afternoon!

    I guess I need to call the real Verizon to see what they say. To use the second phone, an old 4S, or my iPad with Verizon's TravelPass I'll still need to get an extra line for a brief period, and that will likely be the issue. I believe Verizon's TravelPass requires the phone be LTE 4 capable. I don't believe our old 4S has it. So I might need a mix of my wife's iPhone 12 with Verizon TravelPass and either the 4S or my iPad with a SIM card.

  • edited July 2021

    How about hiring a guide to go with you? They should have a phone to call your wife if necessarily.

  • I had the same experience as BSP51: When I kept my phone in airplane mode, and used only the wifi in the hotels, I was not charged. Only when I took off the airplane mode and activated data roaming was I charged $10 per day. By the way, between the roaming and taking photos, I really used up my battery, so when I remembered to do so, I brought a portable charger with me during the day.

  • While I still have no clue about CMMA and GSM. All I know is that when we use our phones abroad, the most extra we have been charged is a few dollars on our regular bill of $12 a month for the two of us. Doesn’t anyone else on the forum have the Comcast deal?

  • I have Comcast's Xfinity Mobile, which is really leased space on the Verizon network, but I never use phone capabilities when abroad. I stick with the wifi when available which is most of the time. I took a lot of pictures in Petra up at the Monastery--it's still my favorite experience of all the places I've been. I would go back there in a heartbeat!

  • Alan - perhaps contact the hotel to see if they have a solution to your 1-day phone need.

  • AlanS - Here's another solution to your 1-day phone need. Scrap all of those extra Petra hike plans and stick with the group, then your need goes away. :D

  • Gee, you are such a killjoy! :D

  • Alan S.---don't skip the Petra climb to the Monastery. It's so worth it!

  • voikk32
    1:42PM
    Alan S.---don't skip the Petra climb to the Monastery. It's so worth it!

    The monastery climb is a definite. Have you done it and how long did it take, round-trip? Estimates of the time required and reports from those who have done the treks vary widely (and wildly :D ) I've trekked it virtually many times using Google Maps street view.

    After the trek to the Monastery my planned trek back to the main entrance will be via the Wadi al Farasa trail that starts behind the nearby Qasr Al Bint (temple of Dushara) to Wadi al Farasa - up the back side of Jabal al Madhbah via the High Place of Sacrifice trail to the High Place of Sacrifice - down to the Street of Facades and back to the hotel. Whether I do that second part depends on how I feel and how much time I have left after the Monastery climb. I don't want to miss the ride to the dinner in Little Petra, though I suppose I could get a taxi from the hotel.

  • Alan S.--I don't remember how long it took me to go up and back and how much time I spent while I was up there--it was definitely the better part of the afternoon. People who are doing the climb are so friendly. No one from my group was interested in going so I went by myself. I was determined. I talked with others along the way and they were from all over the world--Australia, Germany, UK, US, and too many others to mention. There were a number of people doing the climb solo as well. We all did the honors of taking each other's pictures so we could prove we were there and made it to the top. Don't forget to go to the lookouts as well. Great views.

    If I had to guess, I'd say it was probably 3 hours in total between the walk up, the walk down, chatting people up, picture taking, and eating a quick snack. There was some sort of refreshment stand there but I didn't know that so I took an orange from the restaurant. The lunch was buffet style and I assumed it was like that for alI the tour groups. Of course, this was pre-COVID so who knows what they're doing now. It was an interesting walk back through the Siq as the lighting is totally different in the late afternoon from when you walk through it in the morning. To be totally transparent, I did not do Jordan with Tauck but with A&K.

    And a word of warning--you will need to dodge the mules and all of the souvenirs they leave behind. Enjoy! I'd do it again in a heartbeat. In my opinion, Petra needs several days to really explore it.

    Are you familiar with Married to a Bedouin? A brief description is noted below. Marguerite still sells jewelry out of the cave. It's a fascinating story. For sure, I walked by there after 4 pm because that's when the shop closes. I wanted to get a signed copy of her book and stopped before I walked up to the Monastery but decided I didn't want to carry it with me as I wanted to be hands free.

    Married to a Bedouin is the story of how Marguerite van Geldermalsen fell in love with Mohammad Manaja and married him; how she settled into his cave, and slept with him on the ledge in front under a sheet of stars; how she fetched water by donkey, baked bread daily and ran the local clinic.
    The book describes the most recent history of Petra. Through her stories and the stories of the people she shared the valley with, comes a picture of the site when it was alive, and when Marguerite was married to a Bedouin.

  • I think I bought van Geldermalsen's book on Amazon, but don't recall if I ever finished it. Yes, I am aware of the mule "souvenirs!" :o

    Speaking of the Monastery trail. How far off the route is the "Lion Triclinium?" It looks like it is a small ravine parallel to the main trail and to see it you must leave the main trail. To get back on the trail do you need to backtrack a little like it appears on Google Maps Street view or is there a place to return to the main trail farther along?

    In order to finish in time, I'll have to move a bit faster, hopefully 2 hrs or less, for the round trip Monastery trek. Though the Wadi al Farasa trail "generally" parallels the main trail towards the Treasury, during the climb up and over Jabal Madhbah I'll still need to negotiate numerous switchbacks as I climb. That will add quite a bit of time.

    On my daily 3 - 5 mi. walks, I normally maintain an 18 min./mile or less mile pace, but that is on level ground and doesn't include stops for photos. I certainly won't be able to maintain that pace during the climbs. Coming down, however is a different story- stay out of my way! :D During our last morning at Machu Picchu the site was mostly clouded/fogged over, so I decided there was no need to hang around to watch what is normally a dramatic sunrise as the sun crests the mountains and illuminates the site. Instead, I made the climb to the Sun Gate. It was a pretty tough climb and believe it or not, the "steps", such as they were, were more uneven and irregular than what I've seen virtually "walking" the Petra trails in Google Maps street view. In order to make the last bus down to Aquas Calientes, I literally flew back down the INCA trail to the Belmond hotel- I didn't crash once! :D

  • My husband and I traveled to Amsterdam and then to Belgium 2 years ago. We purchased an Orange Holiday 12 GB sim card from Amazon for my husband's iphone for something like $25. It worked fine. We don't understand French, so we got a few spam calls (listened to and interpreted by a tour guide) but that was no problem. We found that it was cheaper than using Verizon. It has pretty good reviews on amazon.

  • Alan S. -- my walking pace is on par with yours and I also do 3 to 5 miles a day on a relatively flat surface. There are some hills but they are small. I didn't get to any of the other parts of Petra which is why I say a few days there is really necessary to fully experience it.

    I stayed with the tour group in Machu Picchu and didn't wander off any trails on my own which I normally tend to do. The first day we were there it was pretty rainy and slick and the next day was pretty hot and I didn't want to be too far away from civilization. Personal preference for me is Petra over Machu Picchu but everyone is different.

  • edited July 2021

    DesertFolk
    6:21PM

    Thanks, I forgot to check Amazon! D'Oh! Initially just did a websearch and stumbled across OneSimCard which is also on Amazon. It sounded good, but got some really bad reviews on Amazon. One negative reviewer claimed many of the good reviews were from shills- happens all the time these days.

    I'll look at Orange and others on Amazon tonight. Orange and Zain are two of the biggest providers in the Jordan/Egypt area. I would prefer having the SIM before leaving the states, though I can't check it out until we get there. In any case, I would hate to get over there and find out it doesn't work!

    voikk32
    6:52PM

    Thanks for your insight. I suspect, due the scale and number of structures and shear size of the site, I may agree with you about Petra.

    p.s. it was a bit cooler tonight so I averaged 17:40 over 3 miles without pushing it.

  • For those who have Verizon Wireless, if you do the Verizon Up rewards, you sometimes have a Free TravelPass Day that you can claim. It says you can "use all the talk, text and data from your domestic plan in 185+ countries." It might be worth looking into and claiming them each month they are offered if this will work for you and your trip. Just check to make sure you can use it w/the phone and plan you have. I cannot because I'm in a very old grandfathered plan and have unlimited data and I won't change my plan and lose that unlimited data. I do show the free TravelPass Day is being offered this month, but again, make sure you have a valid plan/phone before claiming it.

  • Re Kathy's post, I won't do it for another reason:
    " The catch is that the Verizon Selects program allows the company to track massive chunks of your personal data including web browsing, app usage, device location, service usage, demographic info, postal or email address, and your interests. The data then gets shared with Verizon’s newly formed Oath combination (aka AOL and Yahoo), plus with “vendors and partners” who work with Verizon."

    https://www.androidauthority.com/verizons-new-rewards-program-comes-big-catch-791408/

    Same is true with Capital One offering me an app to automatically finds coupons and discounts for online purchases. I value what little privacy we have left.

  • Thanks Kathy. Just claimed my Verizon Up Free Travel Pass day to use this month in Portugal/Spain. I think most Verizon plans now include unlimited data. I just upgraded my iPhone 6 this week to iPhone 12 and my new plan, at the same monthly charge, will now include unlimited data that I did not have before. Verizon is stepping up to try to compete with other service providers.

  • That's great Patrice! If I were to change my plan to get the unlimited data they offer now, my bill would go up a lot! Have a great trip! I, unfortunately, can't use mine, I did claim 2 before I knew I couldn't use them, but I'll just go w/the wifi mode on my trip later this month in Switzerland! Have a great trip!

  • I'm not sure how the phone business has changed recently. When I lived in London during May and June of both 2015 and 2016, I did buy a sim card for about $20 (or was it £?) a month. I didn't want to be tied to an internet connection to make a local call a friend. However, even with that sim card, or my iPhone sim card, I could call anywhere when on a wi-fi connection. Texting was the same. I am making two trips in May/June 2022 on a riverboat cruise and the Paris and Normandy trip and will probably just use my phone as it is, or get one month of the foreign calling and texting, which I think is very expensive (but convenient). To use the European sim card your phone has to use GSM formats. ATT charges about $10 a day for international calling plans....not unlimited calls, texts, or data, by the way. Your smart phone has to be "unlocked" to use a GSM card, but you can do that easily. A quick call to your provider will tell you how to do it. None of this is overly expensive or difficult.

  • Update on my situation- Our daughter was here last week- she has been stationed with the State Dept in embassies around the world, so has a lot of experience with all this stuff. She brought along a Cellular One Sim card she had from a prior tour in Panama. It also also works in the US and still had minutes on it. It would not work in my wife's old iPhone 4 but we tried in her slightly newer, but unlocked, CDMA and GSM capable, iPhone 6. Contrary to what the people at the (contract) Verizon store told my wife when she bought her new iPhone 12, the iPhone 6 still works! We were able to use it with my daughter's Sim card to make calls. My daughter helped me clean, update, reconfigure, and get it ready for next year's trip to Jordan and Egypt. The plan is now to get an inexpensive pre-paid Zain SIM card with a (one week tourist?) plan at Queen Alia airport upon arrival. My wife will leave her iPhone 12 on the existing Verizon international plan. The iPhone 6 battery isn't in great shape, but it should last long enough to provide me with communications and location during my planned extended trek in Petra. Hopefully, problem solved.

  • That’s great Alan, kids come to the rescue!

Leave a Comment

BoldItalicStrikethroughOrdered listUnordered list
Emoji
Image
Align leftAlign centerAlign rightToggle HTML viewToggle full pageToggle lights
Drop image/file