Orange Holiday SIM for Paris Travel - How to Do 2 Factor Authentication?

June 9, 2023 9:27 PM

If I use an Orange Holiday Zen Prepaid SIM for Paris travel, I'll take out my usual SIM card and use the Orange Holiday card, along with a temporary French phone number I am issued. How can I do 2 factor authentication when the prompt is sent to my US-based number?

Would this require removing the Orange SIM and inserting my US SIM, maybe rebooting, and then responding to the 2FA text prompt? And if so, will this cause a problem with the prepaid Orange Holiday SIM when I put it back in the phone?

I have a Samsung Galaxy S10e, which is not eSIM compatible. Thank you.

posted by happy_cat to Technology (10 answers total)

If your phone has two SIM slots, as some S10e variants do, you have other options depending on what your US carrier supports and what their international roaming policies are like.

For example, you could set your US number to only use wifi calling (which would make it use data on your Orange SIM instead) and optionally have your US carrier disable international roaming entirely to avoid any possibility of roaming fees. Or you may be able to safely leave it in standby on the cell network as long as you are careful not to answer any calls or send any texts from your US number. Used to be that you got charged international roaming even on unanswered calls and incoming texts, but many carriers only charge for answered calls and outgoing texts these days.

You shouldn't have to reboot when switching SIMs, but phones can be weird, so don't arrange your life so that not needing to restart is essential.
posted by wierdo at 9:56 PM on June 9, 2023

Note that when I say two slots, I don't mean two separate SIM trays. Dual SIM phones typically have multiple slots in the same tray. One is often shared with the SD card such that you can either use a second SIM or an SD card, but not both.
posted by wierdo at 9:58 PM on June 9, 2023

I have a Samsung dual sim phone as wierdo describes, but it eats battery life when I have both SIMs active so I tend to leave my home UK SIM inserted but turned off whilst travelling. In effect, therefore, I have a single-SIM phone.

So yes, you would just pop out the Orange SIM and put in your usual SIM. Personally, I switch to aeroplane mode before doing the swap as a hot swap sometimes doesn't register. You sometimes need to restart the phone anyway - this seems to depend on the carrier.

However a crucial thing to remember is that when you use a SIM whilst roaming, especially the first time or when you turn it on after several days, it can take anywhere from 10 seconds to 10 minutes to actually start receiving text messages. So you should factor in both potential time to restart and to make sure you're going to get your 2FA message.

It's less of a hassle than it sounds, but you do need to remember to switch well before the 2FA prompt.

If you're going to be in France for a while, depending on the service you're using you might be able to give them an overseas number for 2FA.
posted by tavegyl at 10:59 PM on June 9, 2023

You might consider switching your 2FA to a Google Voice number instead, at least temporarily, which will route the text messages through the app via your internet connection instead of through the carrier network. Also, if you use app-based 2FA tokens (like with an Authenticator app), those will work as long as you have access to your phone app, no connection required.
posted by Aleyn at 11:03 PM on June 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

Another option is just to keep using your US number. If you have verizon there's a roaming option where you pay a flat rate per day (for shorter stays) or for the month. I used this for a recent trip to UK/Ireland/France and it worked great. I think other US providers have similar options.

I set the "low data" option on my phone (android) before traveling to reduce my bandwidth usage while abroad. I didn't notice any change while using the phone. Also, I connected to wifi wherever I was staying for any bandwidth intensive activities like uploading lots of pictures.

Oh and I ran into some cellphone dead spots in Paris such as in the Louvre iirc. A short walk to somewhere else (i.e. go outside) generally fixed it.

Also, some 2fa won't work over Google Voice. Somehow they can detect it's not a "real" number.

Have a great time in Paris!
posted by DrumsIntheDeep at 6:50 AM on June 10, 2023

Best answer: Sort of a sideways suggestion: would the places you want to log in to using 2FA allow 2FA using an authenticator app (such as Google Authenticator) instead? You could switch to using that temporarily while you're in France, which would reduce the amount of times you have to swap SIMs.
posted by sailoreagle at 6:53 AM on June 10, 2023

Best answer: Change 2FA to authenticator app was going to be my suggestion as well. You can switch it back when you're back in-country.
posted by kschang at 1:40 PM on June 10, 2023

Best answer: You can switch it back when you're back in-country

or don't. Google Authenticator is as secure as you can make physical access to your phone, and is not susceptible to SIM spoofing attacks the way SMS-based authentication is. If you're given the choice, Google Authenticator or similar apps that also rely on RFC-6238 TOTP are always preferable.
posted by flabdablet at 7:00 PM on June 10, 2023

It’s not a problem to do as described but if you have any old phone it maybe easier just to have your current sim in that instead, so it’s not annoying to swap.
posted by artificialard at 7:34 AM on June 11, 2023

Response by poster: Thank you all! I appreciate all your responses. My ancient (3 year old) phone is not dual SIM. I'm going to start using an authenticator, I think I've needed to do this for a while but was lazy about learning the new thing. Thanks so much!
posted by happy_cat at 6:07 PM on June 13, 2023