Thursday, March 26th, 2020 (1:33 pm) - Score 15,270

Mobile operator Vodafone UK appears to have picked a lousy time to inform customers in Turkey, many of whom will have been left stranded by the mass cancellation of flights until at least June 2020, that they’re about to impose a £6 per day charge for them to continue using their text, call and data allowances.

Naturally if you’ve just been left stuck in a country, which is not your home, by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) situation then that mobile phone in your pocket suddenly becomes much more essential for daily communication needs. Suffice to say that Vodafone’s significant price increase couldn’t have come at a worse time.

The £6 per day charge will only apply on the days when customers actually use their mobile, but as above that’s likely to be every day unless the UK Government are able to organise a mass of repatriation flights before it’s introduced.

Copy of Vodafone’s Customer Email Hello XXXXXXX, We’re making changes to the cost of roaming in Turkey. From 6th May 2020, you can use your UK allowance of minutes, texts and data in Turkey. This will cost an additional £6 per day but only on the days you use your phone. Based on your previous usage in Turkey, you can end your current agreement without a penalty for the next 30 days. We really hope you’ll stay, but to discuss your options please call 0808 005 7370. If we don’t hear from you within 30 days your agreement with us will continue as before. For more information, head online anytime. Thank you. Customer Care Team.

At present Turkey is still one of Vodafone UK’s free roaming destinations, which means customers can use their UK plan while abroad in associated countries at no extra cost. The 6th May change means that Turkey will leave this group and join c.60 other countries as Roam-further destinations (these attract the aforementioned daily fee; similar to how you’d be charged on other networks like O2).

A Vodafone UK Spokesperson told ISPreview.co.uk: “We are informing customers about some changes to our roaming offering, From 6 May, we will be moving Turkey to our Roam-further proposition on pay monthly plans and to roaming zone 1 on pay as you go and VOXI. We are retaining Turkey in our Global Roaming Plus service as part of our Unlimited Max pay monthly plans, which offer inclusive roaming to 81 destinations worldwide. We are the only UK operator to offer plans, which include inclusive roaming in Turkey and we continue to offer roaming at no extra cost in more destinations than any other UK network. If any customer is stuck in Turkey, after May 6th due to the coronavirus, we recommend they contact us to discuss how we can support them.”

Sadly Vodafone doesn’t clarify why the change itself is being made, but unless Brits can escape in time then additional charges of up to £180 per month could easily be created. In that situation it might be worth upgrading to get their Global Roaming Plus service (assuming you can actually contact customer support by then).