I've used eSims in my iPhone for my two trips to the US this year, though am girding my loins in anticipation of some issues when our family holiday to the US starts in a couple of weeks.
May trip:
Downloaded the T-Mobile app and signed up for an eSim after arriving in Minneapolis. Easy peasy. Basically worked well, and as expected for the two week trip. Though, as I already have a T-Mobile account using my primary email addy, I had to use my secondary email to sign up to a new account.
Since May - delete various emails from T-Mobile suggesting that I top up my account, etc. Also some emails about deactivating my account due to inactivity.
Oct trip:
Used the T-Mobile app, still on my phone, to get an eSim. Can't use primary or secondary email account - need another email account. Try using the "+" trick with Gmail, but that doesn't work.
Get annoyed and rant about it on Twitter. Actually get help from T-Mobile to some degree, but they need to close my account with the secondary email. Lots of DMs on Twitter with T-Mobile support staff, to varying degrees of success.
Also this time, there are three or four different payment options/plans, but I can't distinguish between them in the app, apart from the cost, as they all seem to include unlimited data and the same talk + text. Very confusing, and these details aren't on the T-Mobile website.
In the end, I create a "burner" email account (katiesburnerphoneihatetmobileyoubastards at email dot com
) to get the new eSim set up. Two and a half weeks later, T-Mobile still can't figure out how to make it so that I can use my secondary email account. Maybe I should just not care and create a new burner email every time. Or use another eSim provider.
At some point in the interactions, T-Mobile support tell me to use the T-Mobile app ... but it's the main app, not the eSim app, and that's not available on the AU app store, which is all I have access to on this phone. And I don't want to faff about with a US app store account. (Whodathunk it - an eSim app being used by travellers without access to the US app store!?!?!?!?
)
I've had a prompt email to my secondary account about refilling by tomorrow. But it's only been 2.5 weeks since I got the latest eSim.
SO, if you travel to the US a few times a year and want to use the T-Mobile eSims, you may need to use a different email each time. Or you may have to pay attention to an email that I did not pay attention to. I don't want to reuse the number, but I didn't want to faff about creating new emails and accounts 2-3 times/year.
If anyone has gotten around this, I'd love to know what you did.
The + trick with Gmail - if you have an email, say katiesburnerphone at gmail dot com, you can add something after the name part to create a unique email address, but the actual emails will go to that gmail account. So, I could enter my email on a form as katiesburnerphone+teen at gmail dot com, and use that for the teen's something or other, such as Medicare login. But the emails go to my katiesburnerphone email (because the teen can't remember or be responsible for such accounts yet).