Talk Quesada forum

I have a Spanish and UK mobile and a relative has come over for a few days and has a UK mobile my question is is it cheaper for him to phone my Spanish or UK mobile and visa versa. He doesn't have access to wifi so no whats app etc.

Thanks Nickel

Under new roaming rules can call within same contract as at home so probably UK to UK unless they have international calls on their plan

I am on orange he is on o2 does that make a difference then

A little snippet from Martin Lewis, the money saving chappy.

The European Commission launched its 'Roam Like At Home' rules which mean you'll be able to call most landlines and mobiles within the EU for the same price you'd pay if you were in the UK calling a UK number.

So if you've a monthly allowance it'll come out of your minutes – if you've got pay-as-you-go (PAYG) credit, you'll be charged your usual UK rates. If you go over your allowance or bundle you'll be charged your network's UK rates.

However, calls to EU countries from your UK mobile, while you're in the UK, aren't considered 'roaming' and will be charged by your network as an international phone call.

So, for example, if you're in Spain and make a call to a local Spanish number on your UK mobile, it will be cheaper than calling the same number from the UK. What's more, when in Spain it'll be cheaper to call anywhere else in the EU than if you made those same calls in the UK.

It's even cheaper to call the UK from Spain than calling Spain from the UK. And of course, what works in Spain works in all other EU countries (except the UK, assuming you're using a UK mobile).

Thanks for that marcliff interesting reading but it doesn't say if it is cheaper to do UK to UK while abroad than UK to Spanish or am i missing something

It is definitely cheaper to call a local spanish number than a uk to uk network number and I can vouch for this from experience. My daughter rings me and then asks me to ring her back as she claimed it was cheaper that way, citing the article Marcliff has posted above.

Only Wednesday last week we went into O2 store to query my last 4 bills which have been excessive and run into over £100 pm and I hardly use the bl....y thing. We were told that there’s no such thing as roaming to Europe from the UK. There is however from Spain to U.K. so whilst I have merrily used my phone thinking i was using my allowances it’s transpires that this was not the case and my allowances are sat there intact whilst I have been paying international call rates. This is not the case the other way round. So it’s cheaper to ring a spanish number from a UK phone.

Whilst Abroad (In EU) there is no difference if you call a Spanish (or German or Italian etc.) number or a UK number from your UK mobile, it is included in your UK package . . . . however someone in Spain using a Spanish mobile calling your UK mobile in Spain will be charged International rate as they are not roaming . . . unless they have a special package that includes calls to UK.

I forgot to add that the free EU Roaming rules only apply for holiday/shorter term usage abroad in any one go . . . All the Companies have a fair use policy, so if you use your UK phone in Spain for extended periods they can revoke the free roaming and/or apply additional charges . . . O2 state 60 days limit in any 4 Month period, BT Mobile is 90 Days in any 4 Month period, so I don't know if that is what transpired with Tootandploot above?

thanks for all the comments very useful and much appreciated.