Optus new $50 SIM only with roaming

They moved me from a post paid plan to a plan which is automatic direct debit in advance, and due to this I lost access to the old billing page where you could pay manually, and now I can't figure out how to pay my overdue bill from the old plan that they keep sending me SMS reminders for with links to the billing section of the app which then refuses to open.
I’m assuming my DD will still go through on the 12th, but I used to Bills via email and they have the BPAY details. It’s just their biller code and your account number.
 
Have also been moved to one with 180gb data and the overseas data is now disappeared :(
 
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Have also been moved to one with 180gb data and the overseas data is now disappeared :(
That’ll be 80GB for your old plan and the new 100GB from the default plan.

Click on “Account” \ “My Plan” to see what they’ve moved you over to.
 
Just wondering how anyone who ported to Amaysim is finding the service.

I'd also be interested in how people have found the roaming pack.
 
Just wondering how anyone who ported to Amaysim is finding the service.

I'd also be interested in how people have found the roaming pack.
There's some comments up thread suggesting positive experiences.

It looks like I'm going to be on $29pm with Optus Choice Plus for at least 12mths, so I'll stick it out until something better comes along. In the meantime, there's no shortage of eSIM options to provide roaming data (as discussed here in the eSIM thread).

For those who need or want the option to make voice calls (to other mobiles/landlines) when roaming, I've started a new thread with some ideas.

The Telstra pre-paid plus roaming pack is interesting. Especially if it allows wifi calling/SMS overseas.
 
I decided to try Amaysim as all I need is an inexpensive monthly plan when in Oz. I'll add the $70 roaming pack this week before I fly out to KUL, then buy a local sim at KLIA for use in Malaysia. I have another trip to Japan later in the year so will buy a Japanese esim from a local retailer and rely on Amaysim in emergencies.

From completing the order to porting of my number took under ten minutes to receive, install and set up the esim then connect as I was porting from Optus. Speeds so far are a bit slow but that's Optus here.
 
I think porting out and then porting back in on the most expensive Qantas plan si the only option to get included roaming.
I'm in the same position and just wondering if anyone has experience with how this works: I'm approaching the end of my initial 12 months on the $79 plan and find this absolutely fabulous with all the roaming included.

Could I now just port to some cheap provider for a month and then take up the Optus offer anew for the 20,000 bonus points (as I'm technically "switching to Optus") or will they not award the points because I've been a customer before? The Ts&Cs don't say anything about it which is strange.

Would love to hear if anyone has done the above... Thanks all!
 
I made the switch to Amaysim saving me $20 a month. I also took out the 'The Epic' travel pack for $70 which gives 100 minutes of voice, 100 SMS, and 5Gb of data.

I'm currently in Malaysia. The roaming pack alone has been worth it for receiving messages from my bank and credit card providers alone. I bought a local Hotlink SIM to use here which is very good, especially for the cost. I decided to try the Amaysim travel pack for data and it's great. No complaints at all and I have it for a year.

I'm off to Japan in October and I came across this which I have bought
25% off Japan & Asia SIM Cards including eSIM from $15.00 + Free Shipping @ TravelKon. The esim was emailed immediately.

Two months back in Europe next year and the same Amaysim travel pack will be used again. So far so good when I used it back in Oz and while using it here.

It all works out cheaper for me over a year and I think Optus has stupidly done their customers and themselves a disservice.
 
Sounds like some useful info / option that could be posted here.

I’ve just rolled over to my 2nd billing cycle on Optus post change over. The $20 pm discount has stuck, they’ve honoured the bonus 70GB (so app is showing 100GB data allowance on a 30GB plan). Although I’ll be OS this month.

Phone is still happily roaming and can receive SMS for free but calls/send txt will be $5 day. Using a Flexiroam Global pack for Canada and USA this trip. See how we go.

Meanwhile yesterday, SYD+1 (similar sort of deal with Optus) first day OS post change, had just activated Flexiroam then had the need to txt or call 28° MC after a transaction was queried. Which would have been $5. At least in days gone by that would have been $0.50 per txt. Meanwhile, managed to fumble through a online chat with 28° to sort out card.

I’ll take a closer look at the Amaysim option, it or the Telstra prepaid plans so far sound like the least fuss for regular roaming?
 
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Not specific to this former plan, but further to my previous post, both SYD+1 and I have both had random activation of the $5 pd roaming charge!

In my case, we’d been in Vancouver for almost 1wk without issue. On the 7th day (literally at YUL about to fly to the US), I received a txt notifying me that roaming had been activated. I had “Data roaming” for the Optus line disabled, hadn’t sent a text nor made / answered a phone call. So I got onto the chat function and fortunately got connected to a competent “expert” who said that there’d been some “minimal data usage” - even though data was disabled. They turned off the roaming activation and processed a credit back to my CC.

What isn’t obvious but apparently calls going to voicemail may trigger roaming charges 🤷‍♂️. Although in my case there was no missed calls (note, you can turn off various call diversions via the Optus app).

Interestingly, they asked how long I was away and I mentioned that I was returning at the beginning of October, so they processed a one month plan credit on my account!

Somewhat ironically an hour or two later, I needed to activate the roaming anyway because our flights went pear shaped and needed to make some calls…

Overnight, while I was asleep I had a second random activation of roaming! Again, no missed calls etc. jumped onto the chat and got a useless rep who was convinced you got charged $5 daily regardless - which is complete bollocks. I terminated the chat by saying it was going nowhere and I’d call back later and speak with some more knowledeaglabe. Interestingly, I know have a $5 credit in my account (in addition to the credit card refund - that’s been received).

I later Googled if this was a common problem but only found one long rant without any specifics of why.

I am aware that phones and their OS will do some minimal data handshakes but if data roaming is turned off that ought not be possible?

Meanwhile, I had a hunch that maybe the Optus app was somehow overriding settings so we both disabled data access to the Optus app and now more than a week later - no random activations! (fingers crossed it stays that way).

Back to the useless rep, this screenshot from the Optus app (over wifi 😁) shows that you should only get charged if you activate roaming….
IMG_2222.jpeg

IMG_2223.jpeg
 
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Not specific to this former plan, but further to my previous post, both SYD+1 and I have both had random activation of the $5 pd roaming charge!

In my case, we’d been in Vancouver for almost 1wk without issue. On the 7th day (literally at YUL about to fly to the US), I received a txt notifying me that roaming had been activated. I had “Data roaming” for the Optus line disabled, hadn’t sent a text nor made / answered a phone call. So I got onto the chat function and fortunately got connected to a competent “expert” who said that there’d been some “minimal data usage” - even though data was disabled. They turned off the roaming activation and processed a credit back to my CC.

What isn’t obvious but apparently calls going to voicemail may trigger roaming charges 🤷‍♂️. Although in my case there was no missed calls (note, you can turn off various call diversions via the Optus app).

Interestingly, they asked how long I was away and I mentioned that I was returning at the beginning of October, so they processed a one month plan credit on my account!

Somewhat ironically an hour or two later, I needed to activate the roaming anyway because our flights went pear shaped and needed to make some calls…

Overnight, while I was asleep I had a second random activation of roaming! Again, no missed calls etc. jumped onto the chat and got a useless rep who was convinced you got charged $5 daily regardless - which is complete bollocks. I terminated the chat by saying it was going nowhere and I’d call back later and speak with some more knowledeaglabe. Interestingly, I know have a $5 credit in my account (in addition to the credit card refund - that’s been received).

I later Googled if this was a common problem but only found one long rant without any specifics of why.

I am aware that phones and their OS will do some minimal data handshakes but if data roaming is turned off that ought not be possible?

Meanwhile, I had a hunch that maybe the Optus app was somehow overriding settings so we both disabled data access to the Optus app and now more than a week later - no random activations! (fingers crossed it stays that way).

Back to the useless rep, this screenshot from the Optus app (over wifi 😁) shows that you should only get charged if you activate roaming….
View attachment 343446
I think I mentioned elsewhere in another thread that I disabled my Telstra day pass, and had a few kB of data usage when I turned the phone on to receive an OTP SMS. No doubt if I had day pass enabled at the time tell telstra would have charged me $10 for the privilege. My concern is that on your plans you can't disable the day pass if you want any roaming, which makes receiving a single SMS very expensive, as you seem to have experienced. Also seems we are not able to trust that disabling of data roaming from your phone actually disables all services which is a worry (for me it was android from Google pixel, not sure if iPhones may be different)
 
I think I mentioned elsewhere in another thread that I disabled my Telstra day pass, and had a few kB of data usage when I turned the phone on to receive an OTP SMS. No doubt if I had day pass enabled at the time tell telstra would have charged me $10 for the privilege. My concern is that on your plans you can't disable the day pass if you want any roaming, which makes receiving a single SMS very expensive, as you seem to have experienced. Also seems we are not able to trust that disabling of data roaming from your phone actually disables all services which is a worry (for me it was android from Google pixel, not sure if iPhones may be different)
We’ve both received several SMSs without triggering daily roaming. That’s how it‘s supposed to work.

The problem(?) with the Optus “Plus” plans is there’s no way of turning off the daily roaming $5 option and switching to PAYG (which we could do on the old plan). It’s either roaming on/off.

With a PAYG option, you could send a text for about $0.50 and you wouldn’t get the daily charge. Technically, you could make calls and use data - but “bill shock” would follow…
 
My concern is that on your plans you can't disable the day pass if you want any roaming, which makes receiving a single SMS very expensive, as you seem to have experienced.
Disable mobile data first before receiving SMS?
 
Another data point, I was moved to the older plus plan with the $10 roaming 2 days after i left country. No instances of the data randomly activating and I received numerous sms and calls that went to voicemail. I did come home to about $15 of extra charges but that is because I answered 2 calls in USA from a tour provider rescheduling and sent 1 sms in Ireland.

So for me at least no change to behaviour from previous plan. But I didn't try using data for 1 day and then turning off like I did last year. I had a UK roaming data only Simon my tablet which easily covered any data I needed whilst not on wifi.
 
Another data point, I was moved to the older plus plan with the $10 roaming 2 days after i left country. No instances of the data randomly activating and I received numerous sms and calls that went to voicemail. I did come home to about $15 of extra charges but that is because I answered 2 calls in USA from a tour provider rescheduling and sent 1 sms in Ireland.

So for me at least no change to behaviour from previous plan. But I didn't try using data for 1 day and then turning off like I did last year. I had a UK roaming data only Simon my tablet which easily covered any data I needed whilst not on wifi.
So did you had your plan set to PAYG? So calls in/out and text sent are charged at the going rate. Leaving “Data roaming” off also means no charge.

If so, it would be highly unlikely to get pinged the $10 daily charge.

Unfortunately, the “Plus” plans have $5 pd automatically enabled (can’t switch off and go PAYG).

But since my two two hiccups here, no other spurious charges.

We’ve also had Flexiroam eSIM down the data. They seemed to have left mine on for some reason…should have expired a couple of hours ago….🤫
 
I turned data off via phone when I boarded in SYD and not on again until I landed back in SYD 5 weeks later, as I have always done. I don't even have optus app installed, no need for it.

Just glad accepting 2 calls didn't activate the $10 which the email said it would.
 
Just glad accepting 2 calls didn't activate the $10 which the email said it would.
Only if you have $10 daily roaming activated.

The default is PAYG (where available). If you download and open the Optus app you probably see that set.
 
Found another way Optus can take your money…

On my final days in North America after several weeks free of spurious $5 daily roaming charges - until yesterday. This time I consciously activated it to make some calls. Received the text and email confirmation and my CC was charged $5. About 2 hrs later, another text and email combo and another $5 charged to my CC. WT….? I’m thinking surely the Optus system is smart enough to only charge you 24 hrs later if you continue to use roaming?

Note: actually, if you consume your 5GB data allowance under 24 hrs the system will charge you again for each 5 GB apparently. HOWEVER, I’d only made two calls and used about 50MB of data. So who knows what was going on….

Rang Optus thinking this would be straight forward, but did get a run around at first - as they tried to explain the bit about ongoing charges for each 5GB but they’d obviously failed to note the minimal data usage. Eventually they agreed to reverse the CC charge (although it looks like a “credit” on my Optus account). But no explanation for why this can happen….🤷‍♂️

I have one more OS trip this year and will hold out since it’s quite a cheap deal I have but I’ll probably look to ditch them before next years travels…
 
Found another way Optus can take your money…

On my final days in North America after several weeks free of spurious $5 daily roaming charges - until yesterday. This time I consciously activated it to make some calls. Received the text and email confirmation and my CC was charged $5. About 2 hrs later, another text and email combo and another $5 charged to my CC. WT….? I’m thinking surely the Optus system is smart enough to only charge you 24 hrs later if you continue to use roaming?

Note: actually, if you consume your 5GB data allowance under 24 hrs the system will charge you again for each 5 GB apparently. HOWEVER, I’d only made two calls and used about 50MB of data. So who knows what was going on….

Rang Optus thinking this would be straight forward, but did get a run around at first - as they tried to explain the bit about ongoing charges for each 5GB but they’d obviously failed to note the minimal data usage. Eventually they agreed to reverse the CC charge (although it looks like a “credit” on my Optus account). But no explanation for why this can happen….🤷‍♂️

I have one more OS trip this year and will hold out since it’s quite a cheap deal I have but I’ll probably look to ditch them before next years travels…
If I understand correctly the Telstra daily pass renews based on AEST, not a 24 hour time period. Any chance you accidentally crossed two days in AU despite only 2 hours passing in the US?
 

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