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February 14, 2017 11:38 AM

sim card that will work in both the UK and paris?

i am going to see a friend in london soon, and will be spending most of my time there. however, i will be taking a side trip to paris for two days. i have an unlocked iPhone 7. is there a company i can buy a sim card from (either in person at heathrow or online from amazon or etc) that will work in both places and give me a not insignificant amount of data? i will probably be using maps a lot.

posted by koroshiya to Travel & Transportation around Kansas City, MO (9 answers total)

Best answer: a - are you on tmobile in the US already? Then your plan may already have international roaming in both these places. IMO this is the easiest by far.

b - when I did a similar trip I bought a SIM in heathrow from a vending machine - I believe it was a "3" sim (http://www.three.co.uk/) You can get 12GB for £20 prepaid which seems fine to me. They do have no-extra-charge roaming in France although their coverage was hit-and-miss for me. It mostly worked.
posted by GuyZero at 11:56 AM on February 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Three do "Feel at Home for pay-as-you-go SIMs which covers France and will mean your data use will come out of the domestic UK data top-up you buy, rather than roaming rates. I'm not an expert but it might be worth investigating.
posted by A Robot Ninja at 11:56 AM on February 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Three has a deal they call "Feel at home" where roaming in certain countries is the same cost as UK calls. I used it in 2015 and it was brilliant! You can buy sims off ebay but they're not hard to find in person either.

My default suggestion for this kind of query is the Prepaid SIM with data wiki which may suggest other options, but I'd have a hard time going past Three.

(Apologies if the links don't work - I'm on my phone)
posted by Cheese Monster at 11:58 AM on February 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: i currently have at&t. sorry for leaving that out.
posted by koroshiya at 12:08 PM on February 14, 2017

You can buy voice+text+six to ten gig data sim cards in vending machines for some nominal amount of money at any airport in Europe; I wouldn't sweat it in advance.
posted by mhoye at 12:09 PM on February 14, 2017

The term for this is PAYG which stands for "pay as you go" and means the same as "prepaid" in the US. SimLocal is one place to go inside Heathrow, though I would check their reviews and know which company you want before going in. Also, you should get a sim for free or maybe for one pound as long as you top up enough to begin with, usually 10-20 pounds. If you can wait until you get to Central London, I guess the prices tend to be cheaper there and you can walk right into a Three or Vodaphone store and have them help you set it up.
posted by soelo at 12:09 PM on February 14, 2017

Best answer: I came in to nth 3. Buy a SIM at any store and top up £20, you get lots of data and it works anywhere in the EU.
posted by katrielalex at 12:58 PM on February 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: gonna try 3. thanks, all!
posted by koroshiya at 2:19 PM on February 14, 2017

If you don't go with 3, who sound good, be careful which plan you buy. We asked whether the O2 SIM would work in Ireland, but didn't clarify whether the plan had any value outside the UK. Turned out it didn't. The slightly more expensive plan did (bought on different days by different members of the family). And then recharging was a nightmare.
posted by kjs4 at 10:39 PM on February 14, 2017