International Travel Plan End Dates

[rick-baker]

In January, I set up an International Travel Plan for $100/month on one line on my account to cover a child traveling to Spain for a semester abroad. I entered the travel start and end dates when the plan was set up. At the end of one month, the plan automatically terminated and multiple $10/day Travelpass  charges were made to my account, adding up to hundreds of dollars in additional charges, until the error was caught at the next billing cycle (a much larger bill than expected). 

I’ve now got this resolved with Verizon Customer Service and the International Plan for $100/month is in effect in perpetuity. I’m told that all International Plans are for either 1 month only or perpetual (continue until cancelled by the customer). That there is no way to set up a plan to terminate on a given end date. 

Now I’m compelled to pay hundreds of dollars in unexpected charges AND contact Verizon to cancel the plan at a future date. 

None of this seems correct. Do International Plans set up by customers through the Verizon app really auto-terminate after 1 month, even though travel start and end dates have been entered? And is there really no way for a VCS representative to set up the plan to begin on a given date and end on a given future date (i.e. not renew in perpetuity until a separate action is taken to cancel)?

If so, I’d suggest that the system should be capable of such a simple and common thing as having an International Travel Plan active between 2 dates for travel that is known to begin and end on specific dates. 

[vzw_customer_support]

rick-baker,

We always want to make sure you can set up your plan in the best way for you. While our trip planner asks for your travel dates, that is to make sure the services will be available at those times. Setting up the plan comes after that. When choosing the plan there are two options. One is to set it up as an ongoing feature, which you can have us remove for you later or remove on My Verizon. This will charge until you remove it, but we can remove it any time. Or you can set it up for a 30 day period, not based on your bill cycle, which for some customers can work better. The furthest we can future date a feature or plan removal though is the end of your current bill cycle. If you need the plan for longer than the end of the current bill cycle, it would need to be removed at that time. 

-Andrew

[rick-baker]

Thanks for your reply, Andrew. Your response is consistent with what the Verizon Customer Service Representative I spoke with told me.

I’m struggling with several aspects of how this works…

1. This is different than how this worked previously. Previously, the default setting was for the plan to be active until cancelled (i.e. you had to call to cancel the service after the trip to avoid receiving another monthly charge).

However, you could set up a certain number of months to be active then the plan would terminate. Customer service representatives could set this up for you at the time you initiated the plan, if you set up the plan with them over the phone.

Having done this multiple times in the almost 20 years I’ve been with Verizon, I can state with complete certainty this is how it used to work. There are also several posts from Verizon Customer Service Representatives in this forum dating back to 2015 that contain this description.

2. If there is no way currently to set up a travel plan to terminate on a given date (at the end of the planned travel), that is a feature that’s been removed and I humbly suggest that it should be reinstated. I’m sure I’m not the only person who has had, or is going to encounter, this issue.

People shouldn’t have to take a separate action and have a second touch point with customer service to have a travel plan terminated after returning from travel. They should be able to set up the plan to begin on X date and end on Y date (purchasing in 30-day increments for International Travel Plans, of course).

Customers should also have the option to change the end date if their plans travel change and they either need to cancel the plan early or extend it (in 30-day increments).

Programmatically, this suggestion would be easy to implement. Bill monthly until given date, then don’t bill any more…

3. If the plan I was on was going to terminate after 1 month, why did the Verizon app ask me for my travel start and end dates when I set up the plan? Doesn’t that imply to the person setting up the plan (in this case myself using the iOS app) that the intent is for the plan to be in effect between the two dates entered?

4. Plans shouldn’t be automatically terminating with no action from the customer. This lends itself to being on travel and receiving unexpected charges at a higher rate than that offered by the extended travel plan. Then unexpected large bills, unhappy customers, etc.

Though it’s not going to cause massive hardship to give Verizon Wireless (a multi-billion dollar market cap company with a quarterly net income of $4.7 billion in the last quarter) $300 for a month instead of $100, it’s an annoyance for this to have occurred and for there to be no recourse in a situation where the intent was obvious. The travel indeed continued to include the dates entered when the plan was initiated. I’ve now proactively contacted customer service to get it fixed after receiving an unexpected large bill due to the unexpected auto-termination of my travel plan. 

That aside, why should I be compelled to spend even more time contacting customer service yet again when the travel is over to cancel the plan? I know the exact date the travel is ending and communicated that to customer service…

A function to have an International Travel Plan begin on a certain date and end on a certain future date fixes this.

Could you please communicate this suggestion to the Verizon team to be implemented at the next software upgrade? You guys have the nation’s largest and most technologically advanced 5G network, serving millions of customers. Surely someone there can figure out how to allow customers to have International Travel Plans actives between two dates. 

Thanks.

- Rick

[Czech1]

You are right Rick. I deal with this every summer. Even when I take the time to cancel my international travel  plan, (not easy to do), Verizon continues to charge me until I’ve contacted them at least three times to cancel it. One time when I canceled it they even added Verizon cloud storage to both my phones which I told them I didn’t want and I had to call back to cancel that too.  it’s a real hassle to travel with Verizon wireless on your phone.