Australia and Oceania Travel Forum

Hey travelers!

I'm traveling over to Aussie later on in the year for a few weeks to go on a road trip around New South Wales and Queensland, and obviously will be wanting to use my phone from NZ (where I live).

At the moment I'm using Vodafone as my plan for my phone here, and a mate told me the other day that using a vodafone NZ mobile in Australia costs the same as in NZ. I've found their website and the offer of the thing at www.vodafone.co.nz/scary ...

What do the kiwis traveling over to Oz think? Have any Kiwis here used vodafone in Australia before?

Cheers!

Yep - I'm a Vodafone customer and haven't had any problems at all, no awful bills on arrival home. Don't forget though that you will pay to receive calls as well and you'll need to be set up for roaming (which you can do from their website).

If you check this Vodafone list

http://www.vodafone.co.nz/roaming/countries/index.jsp

you see that it is more expensive to make international calls to NZ if you keep your NZ card, and have to pay $1 for incoming int'l calls, as already mentioned.

You have to calculate how many calls you will make or receive, or if you will mostly text. Quite a lot of people might call you if they do not know that you are in OZ...

When I go to OZ I normally buy an Australian Vodafone card. But as said, calculate a bit to see if it would be worth spending $30 for just having the Aussie card (including talktime). When I am in Oz (often on business trips) I make and receive a lot of calls, and text quite a bit, so it is always worth the investment and not use my NZ Vodafone card.

When friends visit NZ and do not want to buy a NZ SIM card they normally keep their phones turned off during the day and only turn it on in the morning and evening to check texts, so their bills do not skyrocket.

If you travel a lot in remote areas the Telstra network has the better coverage in Australia.