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Strategies for keeping Travel Pass usage under control?

Next month I plan to use TravelPass for the first time, in Europe. I'll be there 11 days, and I hope to use WiFi most of the time, and just use cellular as backup. (I'm shooting for a max of five 24-hour sessions.)

It looks like activating Airplane Mode and turning WiFi back on would be a safe option. But is there anything less drastic than that--something that would let me stay aware of incoming calls (without answering them) and that would let me receive text messages, neither of which is supposed to "trigger" a 24 hour TravelPass period.

For example, would turning Mobile Data OFF suppress unintended 24 hour periods, while still allowing me to receive texts and (unanswered) incoming calls? Would Mobile Data OFF prevent background data activity by APPS, etc, which (as I understand it?) would otherwise trigger a 24 hour period? I hope all this makes sense. Thanks much.

Comments

Ann154

Answering a call and I think receiving a text message will trigger the Travel Pass charge.

With your trip length perhaps alternating days between airplane mode and allowing cellular connection on the opposite days, could keep the Travel Pass charge to the number days you wanted to pay for.

CHUCKA75Q

I was in the UK last month and got billed for all 12 days, although I didn't call, receive calls or use data on some of them. I'm wondering if the small amount of data that registers on you usage every day regardless of whether you use data or not (check your usage on MyVerizon) to.... link up with cell towers?.... what?.... triggers the charge. I have another post asking this question, but haven't received a reply yet. The safe way would be to use airplane mode, but as you say, that would prevent all incoming calls. Next would be to turn data off until you need it, but I don't know if this would prevent the trigger or not. We need an answer from Verizon.

THOSAN83

Hi Chuck,

For the time being I can say the following WRT input from Verizon: I have had a series of Chats with Verizon support and while they do recommend Airplane Mode as a rock-solid way to assure no TravelPass charges, one customer support person was optimistic that turning off Mobile Data along with not answering incoming calls should prevent TravelPass charges, too.

So … I'm going to do some experimenting along that line while in France next month (early August). I'm willing to cough up $10 a couple of times just to see what works and what doesn't. I'll plan to report back on what happens.

It could be that after a few days I'll end up buying a SIM card with prepaid voice and data. The one from Orange Holiday Europe for ~$50 looks pretty attractive (30 countries, 10GB data, 120 min voice, 1000 texts). Or something similar. That'd be better for me than 11 days at $10 per day using TravelPass every day (which I hope NOT to do at this point--and so no SIM card yet).

CHUCKA75Q

Please do, THOSAN83. I will be going to Italy in November and don't want to suffer the everyday charges I got in the UK on the TravelPass plan. Your experiment with turning data off should tell us if the unexplained tiny daily data charges that always show up on your bill (without actually doing anything requiring data) trigger the charges. If they do, Verizon's got some 'splainin' to do!

CHUCKA75Q

THOSAN, see my new post 7-2-18 beginning "BEWARE". I learned, the hard way after receiving my bill, that I was charge every day even though I didn't use it some days. The reason from Verizon: "TravelPass sessions start automatically whenever a device connects to a cell tower. If a device is not in airplane mode, it will periodically exchange packets of data with the cell towers around it, which can trigger a TravelPass session." So, unless you are in airplane mode you will be charged, even if data is turned off! This is not made clear in the TravelPass description which is unfair and misleading by omission. So if you want to leave your phone on in case you receive a text or a call, you will be charged. Nice heads-up, Verizon!

SS20

We are having this trouble right now. The travel pass has been activated every day at the exact same minute even if we don’t use it so there is something that is triggering it. Finally put it on airplane mode and cellular off but it still initiated another day. Just got off phone with Verizon - they said they can’t adjust anything right now because I haven’t been billed but I am welcome to call back and dispute it when I get the bill because then they will check the actual dates and times of use. They weren’t sure how to make it stop initiating a new pass every day. Maybe just take the plan off the account completely. Not too helpful when we want to be able to use if needed!

Verizon_Support

SS20, being on top of your international service is vital, especially to avoid any financial surprises, we want to aid you in the best way possible. Where are you traveling and how are you using your phone? When and how are you getting the TravelPass notifications (what is the message content)? When did you set up the phone in Airplane Mode and turned off the cellular data?

GilbertoL_VZW

gln103

I recently traveled to Canada and had a similar random Travel Pass activation experience. Using my Pixel, I received/placed no calls or texts, and I had "Mobile Data" off the entire time. The Verizon tech says my phone somehow used 65Mb of data during 9 of the 11 days in Canada (9 travel pass activations). After 1.5 hours on the phone, the Verizon tech could offer no explanation how it is possible to use data while Mobile Data=off. His only suggestion was to use Airplane Mode, which does not allow any emergency phone calls to be received, so that is a bad option. I'd love to see a REAL solution proposed here by Verizon as there are many examples of people having the same negative experience.

Aquarius52

I was in Colombia for 7 days and although I was sick and stayed in the hotel for an entire day and used the hotel wifi whenever I was in the hotel. My phone would tell me that I am about to start a new 24 hour period and I swear I was notified only 5 times. Yet I was charged for 6 days. Verizon argued with me that was not possible. I was in France and did the airplane mode on/wifi on. I then went from wifi to cellular when I was out and about and wanted to do an internet search etc. In the hotel I used free wifi only. That seemed to work. But I ended up missing several important texts about a family member in teh hospital. So I am still not sure what works. Keep it on airplane mode/wifi on, use free wifi whenever you can, use cellular when you have to access internet, email etc there and no wifi is availabe or strong enough.

Momma23dogs

@Aquarius52
wrote:
I was in Colombia for 7 days and although I was sick and stayed in the hotel for an entire day and used the hotel wifi whenever I was in the hotel. My phone would tell me that I am about to start a new 24 hour period and I swear I was notified only 5 times. Yet I was charged for 6 days. Verizon argued with me that was not possible. I was in France and did the airplane mode on/wifi on. I then went from wifi to cellular when I was out and about and wanted to do an internet search etc. In the hotel I used free wifi only. That seemed to work. But I ended up missing several important texts about a family member in teh hospital. So I am still not sure what works. Keep it on airplane mode/wifi on, use free wifi whenever you can, use cellular when you have to access internet, email etc there and no wifi is availabe or strong enough.

Hotel WiFi is notoriously lousy. Every time your phone is idle, you get kicked off WiFi. Unless you put your phone in airplane mode, and turned WiFi back on, you would revert to cellular each time.

taylorh9

I've been to China several time with an iPhone. What I do turn on WiFi calling on the iPhone before putting it in airplane mode, then in China I only use wifi which allows the phone to connect to Verizon over Wi-Fi calling. This allows text and calls but doesn't trigger TravelPass.

Typically if I do turn off airplane mode but leave data disabled, I won't activate travelpass until I turn it on but I believe any incoming text will trigger travelpass. I'm not totally sure. Verizon's FAQ says when you "send a text" but nothing about receiving.

The next tip is to use Verizon Message Plus app. Verizon Message Plus lets you do almost all of your SMS messaging over wifi data and it also allows you full phone calls over wifi. The phone calls is really redundant to the iPhone Wi-Fi calling feature so you can use either.

So tips, at least on iPhone (I don't know how much of this applies to Android.)
Get Verizon Message Plus and activate the voice calling feature. Put your phone in airplane mode but connect to Wifi and test it out. You shoud be able to send/receive SMS with that app as well as make/receive phone calls. You shoud also be able to use iMessage.

Go into iPhone settings>Phone or settings>cellular. Turn on WiFi calling. Make sure to do this BEFORE you leave the country and before enable airplane mode. Now turn on Wifi and make sure you can make/receive calls. You can turn off phone calls in the Message + app and just have that as your backup.

Now go on your trip. Keep it in airplane mode but use wifi when avilable with either wifi calling or Verizon Message + app. But when you need it, shut off airplane mode, turn on cellular data, and TravelPass will begin. Use it for 24 hours. Put it back in airplane mode and back on WiFi & Wi-Fi calling until you need cellular again.

Using this method, I may use only 3 days of Tavelpass out of a 7 day trip.

jsim

We are having the same issue. Keep getting dinged with daily travel pass even though phone is in airplane mode

Momma23dogs

@jsim
wrote:
We are having the same issue. Keep getting dinged with daily travel pass even though phone is in airplane mode

Literally impossible. Airplane mode disables ALL connections. You can then selectively turn on Wifi and Bluetooth. Check your phone’s notification bar. If it has a local carrier up there, it’s on cellular.

Verizon_Support

We certainly want to see you have a worry free trip with the right setup. What model is your phone? What actions are you doing on your phone when the session starts? YaleK_VZW

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