Teen excess phone charges whilst travelling

[GUT2407]

When we go overseas we buy a prepaid sim. You can pick them up for $2 at Safeway or Woolworths.

 

Would she agree to putting the phone in the safe when leaving each port with it switched off or in airport mode? Can you ask the provider to put a cap on the plan for the time you are away? If it exceeds the included data then it is disabled. Might be worth asking...

 

I agree with "Honey we gave to put the phone away at sea, but you can use it in Port".

[GUT2407]

And tell her any excess charges are in her.

[trishh]

We leave on Monday for far North Queensland cruise. I have a 16y/o daughter who is obsessed with data use and being able to communicate with her friends. My DH and I decided not to get her ship wifi for family time and to encourage actually meeting new people (the teen club).

She has unlimited free msgs on her 6S Telstra enabled mobile.

How can I ensure we don't get an astronomical phone bill?

How wil we know if she has usual coverage or roaming rates?

Sorry, a bit ignorant on this subject.

Morning,

I just took my two teenagers on a cruise at Christmas with their phones. They just put it on airplane mode when we were at sea which meant they couldn't do anything and when we were in port they could use it as normal (Australian ports only). I told them if they didn't do this they'd be paying for huge data bills themselves

Trish

[cruisine21]

For an IPhone 6s it's Settings - Mobile Data - Turn off Data Roaming.

[ariomD]

Hmmm ... leave the phone at home and consider it the ideal time to cure her of her obsession. Contrary to what your daughter may believe, lack of 24/7 contact with her friends is unlikely to prove fatal.

 

OR ... let her take it, do what she wants AND PAY THE BILL. Herself. With NO help from you.

 

But, your daughter, ultimately your choice. (Note: YOURS, not hers, unless she's paying her own way.)

[goodycruising]

Phone plans are like writing blank cheques. We use prepaid and it has saved us a couple of times. Even on our recent cruise where a friend called us and it costed us $28 of our prepaid. We were going to chat again later but gave that a miss! You can get a prepaid set up pretty quickly and they are for sale at a lot of places. Even us adults like to keep in touch, and while I enjoy a couple of sea days with no coverage, it is better to just go with the safer option of limiting the liability. We take a couple of prepaid vouchers with us as well to add extra credit if we need it.

Edited February 7, 2016 by goodycruising

[GurlzCruisinRTW]

My whole family, including teens and 20s permanently all exist of Optus Prepaid - we have never had plans

 

You know where you are with Prepaid

 

How about an Optus Prepaid 70 Text Msg for $10 - which can be used just on the coast/port - with roaming turned off

[vrogers]

Newby58 sorry no good advice, other than good luck, I use vodaphone and their $5 data roaming in certain countries work well, your problem will be data roaming while at sea and her hooking into cellular at sea, that will send the bill skyrocketing!

[Newby58]

After much discussion and compromise ;-) ALL our phones will be locked in the safe and only taken out when in port. If I turn off mobile data and data roaming and put the phone (s) in aeroplane mode for storage will this ensure no unforeseen charges?

 

Thanks everyone for your input.

[OzKiwiJJ]

After much discussion and compromise ;-) ALL our phones will be locked in the safe and only taken out when in port. If I turn off mobile data and data roaming and put the phone (s) in aeroplane mode for storage will this ensure no unforeseen charges?

 

Thanks everyone for your input.

 

Yes, that's an ideal and fair solution. :)

[wagtail_syd]

Perfect solution. Maybe get her a camera though so she can still take some photos without the phone. Or take the sim out of her phone and give it back to her.

[GUT2407]

After much discussion and compromise ;-) ALL our phones will be locked in the safe and only taken out when in port. If I turn off mobile data and data roaming and put the phone (s) in aeroplane mode for storage will this ensure no unforeseen charges?

 

Thanks everyone for your input.

 

Sounds like the solution.

 

But why not just turn the phone OFF.

[GUT2407]

Sounds like the solution.

 

But why not just turn the phone OFF.

 

That will also save power.

 

Charge it lock it up.

 

Take it out in Port.

 

Repeat.

[trishh]

I also forgot to say have you spoken to your phone company about getting international roaming? Vodofone wanted to charge us $5 per day for roaming and if that saves a huge bill at the end it might be worth it.

Trish

[GUT2407]

I also forgot to say have you spoken to your phone company about getting international roaming? Vodofone wanted to charge us $5 per day for roaming and if that saves a huge bill at the end it might be worth it.

Trish

 

Lat time I asked Vodofone that didn't cover you on the ship and as you are not visiting a foreign country it won't help you.

 

But double check these things change all the time.

[Newby58]

That will also save power.

 

 

 

Charge it lock it up.

 

 

 

Take it out in Port.

 

 

 

Repeat.

 

 

Sounds like a plan!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ariomD]

Good luck and do enjoy your cruise ... all of you. :)

[Blue Elephant]

When we travel overseas we change our SIM card to Travel SIMs that we bought from Australia Post in 2012.

 

These SIM cards cost $50 and are prepaid. I think text messages cost about $1.75 in most countries.

 

We managed to put them in iPhones that were on Optus plans at the time. You can turn the data off.

[gek]

Another vote for prepaid. Somehow my kids ended up on a Virgin prepaid plan with rollover credit. They now have over $5000 credit and 2GB of data on their phones which they will only lose if I don't recharge for $19 each month.

 

Cheaper than a plan, no excess charges, nothing to worry about.

[rkmw]

i'm off to NZ soon and i have a pre paid with Telstra and i rang them up to see if i need another sims card over there and they said no i can keep my same number and any texts or calls i make comes off my pre paid account and i do have roaming, if you check out the link as it has the prices

 

https://www.telstra.com.au/international-roaming/availability-pricing/post-paid

 

i wont be using the phone much so i didnt really want to get another sims card

[SunnyinDubai]

I am with optus and can block global roaming on my account. Maybe speak to your service provider if you can so this? I keep my global roaming on but switch off the data and use wifi when at port when overseas.

[ozscot01]

I travelled with two 16's who need to be surgically removed from their phones. Just explain that they will not have a signal out of port and the costs will be astronomical, therefore the phone needs to be on flight mode and not used for anything other than selfies.

They were both perfectly reasonable about it and understood the need to go cold turkey. Arriving in Auckland was a challenge though. It took us about an hour to walk a kilometre with the need to stop and update through the free wifi[emoji57].

Talk to her, you may be surprised at how reasonable she is. She's 16 and wants to be seen as mature, give her the chance.

[Brisbane41]

Wow, so much judgement! Our kids don't live in the same world we grew up in and unfortunately a lot of them are addicted to social media/constant connectedness. I know a lot of us as adults probably also spend more time than we really we should online too. For us it is so much easier to control the urge though, don't you think?

 

Sounds like just telling your child you are taking their phone off them for the cruise will just result in everyone having a horrible cruise. Not really that great an option.

 

You should be able to turn off international roaming on her phone. I've done it by just googling "How to turn of international roaming on [phone model]" when I've gone overseas before. Maybe also call your provider to make sure this will be enough. You better also explain to her why you are doing this and what the charges will be like if she decides to try and turn it back on. Good luck! Very glad my kids are still tweens. We have all this to come.

 

The problem here is a teenager that probably does not have a job who runs the risk of running up a massive bill only her parents could pay. On a ship they have the ability to sign up to data charges on the ship if it is not put to a stop by the parent. Most children do not know the value of money until they have to pay for things themselves and budget for it.

 

International roaming is extremely expensive. Just before I got a smart phone my old phone racked up a $600 bill overseas just by leaving the thing switched on. Apparently there was some data exchange happening I was not aware of that is part of the network. Telstra dropped the bill and fortunately I did not have to pay it when I proved that it was their negligent fault for not notifying customers of such charges. It was also in the media a bit too that similar things were happening to others.

[mr walker]

I have a business owned mobile, enabled for international roaming for calls - I travel a lot for business. When on holidays, mostly cruising, I use ship Wi-Fi package on-board and free Wi-Fi when ashore.

 

Our office managers instruction "NEVER ENABLE DATA ROAMING". I did once when OS (on land) and got a $145 data bill for a single connection. I did not break the rule again :)

 

OP, you should be safe as long as you (or your teen) follow our office manager's rule. Safer still to enable 'flight mode' on-board.

[Katgoesonholiday]

Our basic rule is that all phones are on airplane mode whilst traveling. Our teen is on a prepaid plan (as are my husband and I) and before we travel we do the checklist to make sure we have all relevant settings turned off to avoid excess charges.

 

He loves his phone and uses it constantly. But he copes fine without access to Internet when traveling.