There's a neat way to avoid roaming charges no matter what network you're on

The cost of roaming with your phone has been something of a hot potato recently, with significant increases in costs in recent years. But there's a cunning way to avoid those costs thanks to Revolut.

For those who don't know, Revolut is a banking app that offers great support for travellers, with attractive exchange rates and fee-free spending and withdrawals. It can help avoid banking costs when travelling for business or on holiday.

The company has now announced that it's addressing another travel pain point by offering roaming services too. This will allow you to easily arrange roaming access for your eSIM-compatible phone, again avoiding the often high costs that UK networks impose.

Through the Revolut app you'll be able to select the country you're in, the data you want and then you pay with your Revolut balance. That makes it really easy to arrange your mobile phone coverage and saves you from having to mess around with different apps or providers for each country you visit.

Prices start as low as £3 for 1GB of data, limited to 7 days of access. But then there are 30-day options for 3GB from £6. The prices vary slightly depending on the options you choose, with regional or global access costing more. For many users, the single-country option will be ideal for holidays and could save money compared to a regular phone network.

For example, I can get 3GB of data for use in the USA for £8 from Revolut, but under EE, my only option for data in the States is the Roam Further add-on at £25 a month!

Using eSIM to its advantage

We first started hearing about eSIM in 2016, but it was the launch of the iPhone 14 in 2022 that really drew attention to the tech.

In the US, the iPhone 14 launched as eSIM only, although that's not the case for the rest of the world, including the UK, where physical SIM remains. However, many phones now offer dual SIM support, so you turn off roaming data on your normal SIM and add eSIM for the roaming data.

The advantage that eSIM offers is that you can easily add a temporary connection through a service like Revolut without having to visit a store and buy a physical card.

The addition of eSIM to Revolut's selection of features for travellers will appeal to the company's 8+ million users in the UK and might also prove attractive to newcomers to the financial platform.