The availability of international roaming is critical if you travel internationally for business or pleasure… but it can be expensive if you don’t take the necessary steps to prevent high bills on return.

Travelling overseas? Vodacom suggests the following simple tips to help you manage your roaming bill.

10 Top Roaming Tips:

• Contract customers who make calls of long duration, can activate Vodafone Passport to save costs. Vodafone Passport allows you to use your home rate, allowing you to talk longer for less. For example, a customer who is roaming on the Vodafone UK network with Vodafone Passport activated on a Talk 130 tariff plan can save up to 83% of what he or she would have had to pay.
• If you are using a smartphone or a tablet ensure that only essential data related activities on your device are enabled to avoid using large volumes of data. Receiving email, browsing the web, using instant messaging services and other applications should only be activated when necessary to avoid using large volumes of data and accumulating a high bill.
• It is also important to note that using your handset to check your email, browse the web, use instant messaging or other applications, is not free when roaming regardless of whether these are available for free in South Africa; and will be billed at the applicable Vodafone world rate for data roaming.
• Accessing Vodafone Live! is also not free when roaming as it is in South Africa and will also be billed at the applicable Vodafone World rate for data roaming.
• Set up your e-mail client to download the header of new emails only. Once you receive the headers of new emails, you can then manually select which emails should be downloaded in full to prevent large downloads. Try to avoid downloading emails with large attachments to prevent high bills.

• Streaming video, person-to-person file sharing or any other type of file download is extremely data intensive and can result in extremely high bills.
• If you are using data roaming on your laptop when abroad, disable all automatic download activity which happens in the background, like operating system updates or software/app updates.
• Disable your smartphone or tablet from performing automatic app refreshes or automatic software updates when abroad to prevent large data downloads.
• When you are using data roaming, where possible always roam on a Vodacom or Vodafone partner network to qualify for the Super Saver data rate.
• If you do not want to use data roaming at all, turn Data Roaming off on your device: select ‘Settings’ > ’General’ > ’Network’ > ’Data Roaming’ or consult your device manual for more information.

Voice Roaming With Vodacom: 

• Remember that when retrieving voicemail messages by dialling 121 and calling Vodacom’s dedicated Customer Contact Centre on 111 from your Vodacom cellphone, you will be charged the applicable roaming rate as a call back to South Africa based on the roaming option you have chosen.
• Receiving a call while travelling internationally is not free - you will be charged at the applicable roaming rate based on the roaming option you have chosen either Vodafone World or Vodafone Passport.
• Divert incoming calls unconditionally to voicemail prior to leaving South Africa to control costs. All incoming calls are diverted to your voicemail service, but you will still be able to make calls. To activate unconditional diverts: Dial **21*08214 and the last nine digits of your cellphone number, followed by the # key and press the send / dial button.

NOTE: If you are abroad and wish to activate your unconditional diverts, then the number to dial is **21*+278214. Since Vodacom customers can have cellphone numbers with prefixes 082, 072, 076, 079 and 071, should your cellphone number have a prefix other than 082, please ensure that the appropriate prefix is used.

• Remember to cancel call diverts on your return to South Africa by dialling ##002# from your cellphone to enable you to receive calls again when you are home.

SMS-ing Jet Setters: 

• Vodacom’s SMS Roamer is the most cost effective way to stay in touch. SMS Roamer disables your voice and data capabilities and only allows you to send and receive SMSs. It is available to all Vodacom Contract, Top Up and Prepaid customers.
• If you activate SMS Roamer, you only pay R2.75 per SMS sent.
• All your incoming messages (i.e. when you receive a SMS) are free. 

For more information on international roaming, click here.