Travel eSIMs can not only help you avoid expensive roaming packages; they can also now apparently get you into airport lounges, keep you safe from hackers, and even help you skip the queue at check-in.
What once felt like a niche hack for techy travellers is now an essential part of anyone’s packing list, and not just for anyone wanting to access Google Maps or FaceTime abroad. Rather than pay upwards of $10 a day for slow mobile data, or put up with dodgy hotel Wi-Fi, eSIMs are often a far superior alternative offering unlimited data – and calls and texts – at a far cheaper rate. They’re a digital SIM that’s built into your device, eliminating the need for physical SIM cards, and they typically activate in one minute or less. Just buy one online before you travel, and off you go.
Saily’s Ultra pitch is bold, and arguably bordering on crazy: gain airport lounge access, skip the lines at security and check-in, and get unlimited data for your whole trip.Credit:
There are a few issues to be aware of. They’re only compatible with newer devices, at least smartphones that were released in the past five years or so, so first make sure that yours is eSIM-compatible. They’re also a bit more fiddly than a physical SIM in terms of replacing them, and some of them don’t come with a phone number, just data.
The good part is that most newer smartphones have dual SIM functionality, meaning you can still leave your Australian SIM or eSIM in place, and add a travel eSIM for data. Just double-check your settings so your phone doesn’t quietly rack up roaming fees. Each of the eSIMs mentioned here are super simple to set up, and provide support if you have any issues.
There’s no shortage of options but these are the standouts.
Saily Ultra
Saily’s Ultra pitch is bold, and arguably bordering on crazy: gain airport lounge access, skip the lines at security and check-in, and get unlimited data for your whole trip. You also get access to NordVPN, a service that encrypts data and protects it from hackers, along with “more perks coming soon”.
All of that functionality doesn’t come cheap – Saily Ultra retails for $US59.99 ($92) a month – making it easily the most expensive offering here. But for many frequent travellers, and especially those whose company can foot the bill, it’s more than worth it.
Saily’s Ultra plan is a new travel eSIM option.Credit:
Every month you get 30 gigabytes of high-speed data and then unlimited data at 1 megabit per second, which is fast enough for browsing the web but not really for streaming Netflix or Spotify.
Every eSIM brand offers data to use abroad. What makes Saily really stand out is its lounge and access perks. I used the eSim to gain entry into the Air Canada lounge at San Francisco Airport, even though I wasn’t flying with Air Canada. Saily Ultra offers one airport lounge pass per month at more than 100 lounges globally, which is a truly great perk if you’re not flying business class or don’t have sufficient frequent flyer status. I didn’t need to scan my boarding pass; instead, Saily generated a QR code that gained me lounge access.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to try the touted ability to ‘skip the lines at the airport’, given San Francisco and Melbourne aren’t supported airports. There are about 120 ‘fast-track airports’, with more to come.
There are a couple of drawbacks: Saily Ultra doesn’t come with any phone number or voice calls, and its data speeds seemed a tad slower overall than its rivals. Still, for the combination of travel data and real-life perks like lounge access, Saily is unique and hard to beat. It feels like first class for your phone.
SimCorner
Unlike most of its rivals, SimCorner is fully Australian-owned and -operated, and has racked up more than 1 million customers across its range, which is available as either physical SIMs or eSIMs. The company has a 4.8-star customer rating and it’s easy to see why.
Download speeds with SimCorner were lightning fast, often topping 300 Megabits per second in downtown San Francisco.Credit: David Swan.
I trialled SimCorner’s US eSIM that gave me unlimited high-speed data on the T-Mobile network, which costs $67 for 30 days. Download speeds were lightning fast, often topping 300 megabits per second in downtown San Francisco, which is just fast as my NBN connection back home. And, in a crucial point of difference, the eSIM included a phone number and unlimited calls to US numbers.
This came in handy when I needed to make (or, in a couple of cases, cancel) restaurant bookings, or give a US phone number to sign up to supermarket and pharmacy reward programs, which saved me a few bucks (and which I’ll never use again). My United flights also offered free Wi-Fi for T-Mobile customers, so that also saved me about $US20. In a mildly amusing and frustrating turn of events, I did get a bunch of texts and calls from people who thought I was someone named Phoenix. These phone numbers obviously get recycled often.
Other than a few awkward texts, in which I said, ‘I don’t know who Phoenix is’, everything worked great. For overall value, speed and reliability, SimCorner is one of the best.
Simify
Simify – formerly SimsDirect – was founded in 2018 by two young Australian entrepreneurs, Mac Steer and Aidan Butler, who were frustrated at paying too much for roaming packages offered by the major telecommunication companies. This was back in the days in which headlines were common of customers receiving “bill shock” and surprise roaming charges of hundreds of dollars.
An eSIM lets you change providers without inserting a new SIM card.Credit: Getty Images
Simify offers mobile coverage across more than 150 countries and has a rather unique business model compared with some of the other options. You pay for how long your trip is, rather than how much data you think you’ll use. Unlimited data in South-East Asia for seven days costs $25 – about the price of a movie ticket – while a ‘global’ option with unlimited data is $129 for 30 days.
Simify is easy to set up and is a strong option for regional plans, like if you’re hopping around a few different countries. It’s beaten by its rivals in a couple of aspects: unlike Saily or Airalo there’s no app, and its pricing does overall tend to be a bit higher than the others.
The bottom line is that, in most cases, travel eSIMs are a far superior option to roaming with Telstra, TPG or Optus. They’re no longer a hack – they’re the passport to smoother, smarter and far more connected adventures.
Other options to consider: Airalo, Holafly, Sim Local.
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
