another cell phone question

[Ellen Dio]

I am sorry I couldn't find an answer to this on here and even calling AT&T they seemed to be a bit confused (at least the woman I got did).

I turn off data on my iPhone 4 to help save costs - but I can still get calls ($$$) and receive text messages (free).

If I put the iPhone 4 into airplane mode I don't get calls or text messages so no cost. OK makes sense if I'm correct so far.

But what if I want to send a text? I turn the phone on and do all/any voice mail messages I've gotten load in and cost me $$ or do I have to actually LISTEN to them for that to happen? Than the only risk money wise I'm taking is if while I'm texting someone calls me.

Is this about the gist? Anyone out there have a handle on this? I'm generally tech savvy to some extent but for some reason this has me very confused and we leave next Saturday. I want to be able to text to our pet sitter (sick cat) and my office like once a day and than get a reply and that's it! Thank you.

[Babyberger]

When I talked to AT&T last fall, they told me that as soon as you turn the phone off of airplane mode you will be charged for and voicemails or texts recieved while it was on airplane mode, even if you don't listen to them. Also if you do it on the ship you will hit their roaming tower and incur those roaming charges. We decided as a family to "disconnect" for the week and left all the iPhones on airplane mode. It was truly a nice break from the everyday emails, texts, phone calls :)

[silentbob007]

In the past, when I've flipped on my phone to send/receive texts, I got an icon for voicemails ... exploring, it essentially said that it was unsure about status, but if I had it search and download, I would be charged.