Three Feel at Home

Mistroma

Mistroma

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Greece for the remainder of summer
www.mistroma.com
I've heard a few people say that Three "Feel at Home" is a cheap option but might not work after a couple of months out of UK.

We actually checked with Three well before leaving UK in April and were told that "Feel at Home" wasn't suitable for an extended trip abroad. It would only work for a couple of months at the most. So we went with a standard Three Pay and Go with normal roaming charges. We had to return to UK briefly after a couple of months and have been back in Spain for last 4 month without a problem. Then the phone stopped working without warning and all networks were listed as "Prohibited". A quick check online showed that roaming had been switched off.

Perhaps Three Pay and Go only allow you to roam outside the UK for a few months even when paying full roaming charges?

Online support says it's easy to fix, just go to My3 and enable it. Of course My3 page actually tells you to call support and ask them to enable it. No problem, eventually find a support email address (well hidden) and let them know.

Email covers the basic points
Our phone xxxxxxxx won't connect to any network
My3 says roaming is not enabled now but has been enabled since Feb. 2015 and we did not alter it
We have a standard Pay and Go without any "Feel at Home" and pay normal roaming charges with no discount
We won't be returning to UK until mid-November

Response so far has been
email saying that they tried to call us but can't seem to contact us(WELL OUR PHONE DOESN'T WORK). We replied to remind them of the facts above

email asking us to call them (IF WE COULD WE WOULDN'T HAVE REPORTED A PROBLEM). We replied to remind them of the facts above (as per our original email)

email to let us know we are in breach of their "Feel at Home" conditions but phone will work when we return to UK. Replied to remind them AGAIN that we don't have "Feel at Home"

It is common now to find that support staff never actually read the contents of a support call. It will be interesting to see how many times we go around the loop before something happens.

Perhaps Three Pay and Go terms only allow 2 months roaming outside UK if you are in a "Feel at Home" location (even if you don't have that option enabled)?
 
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Mistroma said:
I've heard a few people say that Three "Feel at Home" is a cheap option but might not work after a couple of months out of UK.

We actually checked with Three well before leaving UK in April and were told that "Feel at Home" wasn't suitable for an extended trip abroad. It would only work for a couple of months at the most. So we went with a standard Three Pay and Go with normal roaming charges. We had to return to UK briefly after a couple of months and have been back in Spain for last 4 month without a problem. Then the phone stopped working without warning and all networks were listed as "Prohibited". A quick check online showed that roaming had been switched off.

Perhaps Three Pay and Go only allow you to roam outside the UK for a few months even when paying full roaming charges?

Online support says it's easy to fix, just go to My3 and enable it. Of course My3 page actually tells you to call support and ask them to enable it. No problem, eventually find a support email address (well hidden) and let them know.

Email covers the basic points
Our phone xxxxxxxx won't connect to any network
My3 says roaming is not enabled now but has been enabled since Feb. 2015 and we did not alter it
We have a standard Pay and Go without any "Feel at Home" and pay normal roaming charges with no discount
We won't be returning to UK until mid-November

Response so far has been
email saying that they tried to call us but can't seem to contact us(WELL OUR PHONE DOESN'T WORK). We replied to remind them of the facts above

email asking us to call them (IF WE COULD WE WOULDN'T HAVE REPORTED A PROBLEM). We replied to remind them of the facts above (as per our original email)

email to let us know we are in breach of their "Feel at Home" conditions but phone will work when we return to UK. Replied to remind them AGAIN that we don't have "Feel at Home"

It is common now to find that support staff never actually read the contents of a support call. It will be interesting to see how many times we go around the loop before something happens.

Perhaps Three Pay and Go terms only allow 2 months roaming outside UK if you are in a "Feel at Home" location (even if you don't have that option enabled)?
Click to expand...

that doesn't sound very helpful of three customer "service" I'm a feel at home customer, my phone is on daily and has been for months whilst in Spain and not been back to Blighty since July

maybe because I'm on contract and not pay as you go ?

How about posting the SIM card back home to family , they stick it in a phone to re register it on a British network , get it running again then post it back to you ?
 
I was on FAH but the choke they put on downloading files, in France at least, made it unusable. I now have an ID (Carphone Warehouse) Takeaway sim which gives unrestricted data abroad and includes all of EU, USA & Oz. You have to use the sim every 2 months in the UK to keep it going.
 
I have had similar fun and games. You just have to juggle, i bought another 3 mifi, 39.99 from 3, or 30,00 on Amazon, and keep a local Simcard in one of them (changing the APN) and a 3 sim in the ofher. Also got a second 3 sim just in case.By frequent use of free cafe wifis I keep overall costs down......if I dont count the coffees. I like the ribcage idea of using a UK contact
 
Mobile companies are scum. Never sign a contract with them - get a PAYG sim and when it stops working, throw it away and get another. Support is worse than talking to a wall, because walls aren't actively hostile. The one thing that sometimes works, but is tedious, is public shaming, i.e. find their marketing Twitter thing and then tweet your woes publicly. This works better if you have a few thousand followers first.

If you need a fixed phone number to be reachable, either use VoIP (e.g. sipgate.co.uk is very cheap - but beware that mobile companies being scum, they often block such services) or buy your own number from a divert service and then update it to whatever SIM you currently use. This also enables you to easily switch to a local country SIM.
 
Mistroma said:
email to let us know we are in breach of their "Feel at Home" conditions but phone will work when we return to UK.
Click to expand...
TonyMS said:
AFAIK, if you go to a Feel at Home country with 3, you're on their FAH deal regardless.
Click to expand...
Feel at Home only applies to your allowances and add-ons - not to calls and data paid for from your credit balance. So I suspect the only way to avoid using it is to just buy credit. If I use my 321 PAYG SIM in a FAH country and I don't get data at 1p/MB, unfortunately.

My experience is that you cannot get anywhere with email - you have to deal with their call centre. I found they were quite flexible - once they understood the problem.
 
DaveRo said:
Feel at Home only applies to your allowances and add-ons - not to calls and data paid for from your credit balance. So I suspect the only way to avoid using it is to just buy credit. If I use my 321 PAYG SIM in a FAH country and I don't get data at 1p/MB, unfortunately.
Click to expand...

Exactly what I did. I read their terms and spoke to support when getting the SIM. They confirmed that "Feel at Home" wasn't suitable for trips longer than 2 months and told me not to activate any Add-ons. So I've just been topping up and using the credit at 16.6p/min. for calls to UK as they suggested

I also checked their web-site and it said that I need to convert credit into an Add-on to get an allowance for use with "Feel at Home"

Latest email confirms that they've cut me off because "Feel at Home" services can only be used for 2 months in a 12 month period. Apparently, I can use my (non-existent) allowances again when I return to the UK.

They obviously don't read anything in my emails. I only have basic credit and never enabled any Add-ons. Consequently, I have no allowances.

Not much sense to what Three are saying:
Visit Spain for more than 2 months and you'll get cut-off even if paying 16.6p/min international roaming rate
Visit Croatia for same time and you are OK. Same charges as it is in EU but it isn't a "Feel at Home" destination

Three support's replies might be worrying for anyone with a monthly contract and actually using "Feel at Home". If they visit a "Feel at Home" destination for more than 2 months in any 12 months then roaming would be disabled and they couldn't even opt to pay full international roaming rates. I doubt that this is correct.

I doubt I'll get anywhere with Three but will continue to annoy them with detailed emails until I get back to UK.

My experience is that you cannot get anywhere with email - you have to deal with their call centre. I found they were quite flexible - once they understood the problem.
 
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Hi

Interesting.

We left the UK in April travelling via France Spain Portugal and Spain again and are currently in La Linea.

I have a 3 phone contract my wife a sim only deal and we have a data dongle on a rolling contract.

Other than Portugal we have used the 3-3 devices continually for 6 months now with no issues. We link the dongle to our laptops as you cannot tether the phones abroad, though use the phones for data while out and about and for Google maps.

Maybe we have been lucky but have been very pleased with the service so far.

By the way in Portugal we bought a NOS data sim on their offer at the time - 15 euro for unlimited 4G data for a month - we could even watch UK tele and listen to radio 4 on it!!

Regards

Jim
 
Three At Home actually says if you use it for more than 30 days in over 2 months they'll stop it. If you use it for 29 days in every month its fine - or at least mine has been for a year now - I just remember to turn it off one day a month (Sunday when no one ever calls) and I've not broken their T&Cs. Of course they reserve the right to change T&Cs without notice at any time so it may stop sometime :(
 
Trident said:
Three At Home actually says if you use it for more than 30 days in over 2 months they'll stop it. If you use it for 29 days in every month its fine - or at least mine has been for a year now - I just remember to turn it off one day a month (Sunday when no one ever calls) and I've not broken their T&Cs. Of course they reserve the right to change T&Cs without notice at any time so it may stop sometime :(
Click to expand...

Thanks for that info, am amazed they don't need to see it in a non feel at home country for that 30th day but can just leave it turned off!

Let's hope it stays like that.
 
The Feel at Home Ts & Cs say
If you use your allowances exclusively in a Feel At Home destination for any 2 complete months in a rolling 12 month period, we may suspend international roaming on your account, which means you'll no longer be able to use your device or allowances abroad. We'd let you know if this were likely to happen first. If you spend a full month abroad but some of that time is spent in a destination that isn't included in Feel At Home, this restriction won't apply.
Click to expand...
From here.

I'll not try to interpret 'complete month' but it's clear that if you don't 'use your allowance', as the OP thinks they didn't, you shouldn't fall foul of that rule. Whatever, blocking all roaming, as opposed to just charging non-FaH rates, seems draconian.
 
DaveRo said:
The Feel at Home Ts & Cs say
From here.

I'll not try to interpret 'complete month' but it's clear that if you don't 'use your allowance', as the OP thinks they didn't, you shouldn't fall foul of that rule. Whatever, blocking all roaming, as opposed to just charging non-FaH rates, seems draconian.
Click to expand...

Three's website says:
If you’re on Pay Monthly, you’ll automatically use your monthly allowances and Add-on allowances to call and text the UK and use data, and if you’re on Pay As You Go you'll need to convert your Pay As You Go credit into an Add-on to get an allowance.

Feel At Home works automatically when you arrive in a Feel At Home destination. Make sure data roaming is switched on in your device's settings.

Before leaving UK, Three support confirmed I'd be cut-off if using "Feel at Home" and I should therefore not use it. However, Three now say that "Feel at Home is always turned on (hence the statement above about it working automatically). I'd assumed it meant automatically only after I'd got an allowance.

I asked for the call to be escalated and Three support still say that they can't re-enable roaming. They state that it is the same for all customers and following usage restriction applies (as DaveRo already pointed out).

If you use your allowances exclusively in a Feel At Home destination for any 2 complete months in a rolling 12 month period, we may suspend international roaming on your account, which means you'll no longer be able to use your device or allowances abroad. We'd let you know if this were likely to happen first.

They didn't give me any warning, just disabled roaming.

So with Pay and Go you can either enable "Feel at Home" allowances and pay 3p/min. OR use standard credit at 16.6p/min. Three may cut you off after 2 months in either case. So no point in not enabling "Feel at Home" as calls are much cheaper than normal roaming but the restrictions are the same regardless.

This doesn't make much sense.

I'm going to ask about Croatia specifically. Can I cruise there for 3-4 months and use international roaming? So all OK as long as I don't spend more than 2 months in Italy and Spain en-route. Might not be much point though as I suspect that they won't ever re-enable roaming on this account.
 
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