Rogers Roam Like Home?

[Sue M]

As you can prob tell from recent posts, I'm gearing up for Aug trip lol! (Fla & DL!). I switched to Rogers this year and this will be the first trip using this feature.
Love it? Hate it? I'd like to hear you're experience. I have an iPhone if that makes a difference.
One thing I heard, if you have wifi in hotel you still can get charged the daily $5 if you don't have phone in airplane mode. Anything else that's good to know?

 

[TommyJK]

I'm on Bell, and they have the similar daily $5/day roaming feature, but once we went into Airplane mode we stopped getting charged. So I'm suprised the same doesn't happen with Rogers.

 

[Sue M]

I'm on Bell, and they have the similar daily $5/day roaming feature, but once we went into Airplane mode we stopped getting charged. So I'm suprised the same doesn't happen with Rogers.

That's what I was saying, must go into airplane mode to stop being charged. Something I just found out!

 

[mab2012]

Strictly speaking, you only have to turn off cellular, not all radios. In other words, you should be able to connect to WiFi without being charged by your cellular carrier. Not an iPhone user, so I can't give specific instructions on that, but it should be possible, even considering Apple's tendency to dumb down user preferences as much as possible.

 

[oceanwave]

As you can prob tell from recent posts, I'm gearing up for Aug trip lol! (Fla & DL!). I switched to Rogers this year and this will be the first trip using this feature.
Love it? Hate it? I'd like to hear you're experience. I have an iPhone if that makes a difference.
One thing I heard, if you have wifi in hotel you still can get charged the daily $5 if you don't have phone in airplane mode. Anything else that's good to know?

We have rogers and have used the roam like home feature. I've never used my phone in airport mode while traveling (only on the plane). You need to make sure you have roaming turned off when you do not want to use the roam like home feature and switch it on when you do. Or you can switch off Cellular Data so the only way you can access the internet is via wifi.

 

[bankr63]

Works fine for us. Keep in mind that RoamLikeHome also caps at $40 per month per line. Also keep in mind that the fee is per line. We have 4 lines on our share everything plan, so if all lines (3 phones and a tablet) are along, and roaming, that is actually $20/day for everyone, or $160 extra for our usual 10 day trips.

And, yes, just turn off roaming if you don't want that device to be charged for the day. You can then still use wi-fi on that device in the parks or at the hotel.

Another thing to keep in mind is how much extra data you might use on your vacation. I have a pretty robust 10GB plan that we don't go anywhere near most of the time. But on vacation, we can use a fair bit more uploading photos etc, so worth keeping an eye on your usage, or setting usage alerts in your myRogers profile.

One thing that people warned me about that was not an issue. I use Google Maps extensively as my GPS and was told that the data charges for downloading all those maps would kill me. Looking at my usage for the days in the car travelling to Orlando and back (about 24 hours each way), my data usage was not significantly high at all; in fact considerably less than I was expecting. So for me, that myth is busted. I was also warned about data dead zones and GMaps leaving you high and dry; have yet to ever have one of those.

ETA: and that sucks. Just went to fact check, and the cap is now at 10 days ($50/m) where it used to be 8. Also be aware that is for your monthly bill cycle, so if your bill cycle ends mid trip, you might pay more than expected.

 

[Sue M]

Works fine for us. Keep in mind that RoamLikeHome also caps at $40 per month per line. Also keep in mind that the fee is per line. We have 4 lines on our share everything plan, so if all lines (3 phones and a tablet) are along, and roaming, that is actually $20/day for everyone, or $160 extra for our usual 10 day trips.

And, yes, just turn off roaming if you don't want that device to be charged for the day. You can then still use wi-fi on that device in the parks or at the hotel.

Another thing to keep in mind is how much extra data you might use on your vacation. I have a pretty robust 10GB plan that we don't go anywhere near most of the time. But on vacation, we can use a fair bit more uploading photos etc, so worth keeping an eye on your usage, or setting usage alerts in your myRogers profile.

One thing that people warned me about that was not an issue. I use Google Maps extensively as my GPS and was told that the data charges for downloading all those maps would kill me. Looking at my usage for the days in the car travelling to Orlando and back (about 24 hours each way), my data usage was not significantly high at all; in fact considerably less than I was expecting. So for me, that myth is busted. I was also warned about data dead zones and GMaps leaving you high and dry; have yet to ever have one of those.

ETA: and that sucks. Just went to fact check, and the cap is now at 10 days ($50/m) where it used to be 8. Also be aware that is for your monthly bill cycle, so if your bill cycle ends mid trip, you might pay more than expected.

We have 2 lines. So no sense both of us roaming. Until we get to DL. Traveling with my adult daughter. Sometimes we don't want to do same rides, she won't go on coaster or ToT with me and so we just text when I get off attraction. Hopefully DL has wifi? Now that they're making you use App for FPs.

Not happy about the billing cycle. Unfortunately trips aren't packaged into cell phone billing cycles. And I'll need my phone while on first part of trip (Aug) to Ft Lauderdale as I have family there. Then DL in Sept I'll be in next billing cycle. Ugh.

 

[star72232]

I used it in Europe this year.

As long as you have airplane mode on you can still connect to wifi without any charges. It worked great for me. I needed to use it one day in Paris to contact my AibBnB host and one day in Rome to use the GPS. For someone who only does occasional trips out of Canada, it's a great option. If you are going to be in the US more frequently a North America wide plan is probably a better option.

ETA - Make sure you are in airplane mode if you don't want to get the daily charge. Every day your phone connects to a tower to download your email, etc, which most phones do automatically, you will be charged. You don't need to be using the internet specifically, since most phones do at least some updates without you noticing.

 

[Sue M]

I used it in Europe this year.

As long as you have airplane mode on you can still connect to wifi without any charges. It worked great for me. I needed to use it one day in Paris to contact my AibBnB host and one day in Rome to use the GPS. For someone who only does occasional trips out of Canada, it's a great option. If you are going to be in the US more frequently a North America wide plan is probably a better option.

ETA - Make sure you are in airplane mode if you don't want to get the daily charge. Every day your phone connects to a tower to download your email, etc, which most phones do automatically, you will be charged. You don't need to be using the internet specifically, since most phones do at least some updates without you noticing.

Thanks. It will still download email on airplane mode with hotel wifi?

 

[minnie56]

I've had Rogers roam like home forever , left Bell actually to get it as they didn't have at the time.
It has a maximum that charges are capped at and I've never been charged when off of airplane mode.
No idea why? If I don't use it ..I am not charged.

We think it's great! Have used in many countries with ease.

 

[star72232]

Thanks. It will still download email on airplane mode with hotel wifi?

Mine does. I didn't have any issues with being able to download. I think I stopped all push deliveries though, so I had to go into my email to actually get it to download. Once I figured it out and set the auto retrieval back to on it retrieved every time I accessed through wifi.

 

[michelb]

Works fine for us. Keep in mind that RoamLikeHome also caps at $40 per month per line. Also keep in mind that the fee is per line. We have 4 lines on our share everything plan, so if all lines (3 phones and a tablet) are along, and roaming, that is actually $20/day for everyone, or $160 extra for our usual 10 day trips.

And, yes, just turn off roaming if you don't want that device to be charged for the day. You can then still use wi-fi on that device in the parks or at the hotel.

Another thing to keep in mind is how much extra data you might use on your vacation. I have a pretty robust 10GB plan that we don't go anywhere near most of the time. But on vacation, we can use a fair bit more uploading photos etc, so worth keeping an eye on your usage, or setting usage alerts in your myRogers profile.

One thing that people warned me about that was not an issue. I use Google Maps extensively as my GPS and was told that the data charges for downloading all those maps would kill me. Looking at my usage for the days in the car travelling to Orlando and back (about 24 hours each way), my data usage was not significantly high at all; in fact considerably less than I was expecting. So for me, that myth is busted. I was also warned about data dead zones and GMaps leaving you high and dry; have yet to ever have one of those.

ETA: and that sucks. Just went to fact check, and the cap is now at 10 days ($50/m) where it used to be 8. Also be aware that is for your monthly bill cycle, so if your bill cycle ends mid trip, you might pay more than expected.

Just so it's clear (you corrected it at the end of your post but still have the old rate at the start), it's capped at 10 days per billing cycle so it's $50 but it also depends on your cycle start date. If you go on a 3 week trip but your billing cycle starts mid-trip, you'll pay 10 x $5 for one cycle + 10 x $5 on the next cycle for a total of $100.

As others have mentioned, it's charged as soon as you make any connection so if you don't want to use it, turn roaming off. I believe it's charged by the day, not by 24hr period (i.e. if you start using it at 11:30pm and use it until 12:30am, you pay for 2 days).

As far as Google maps, I concur that the data usage is actually relatively low. If you want to use even less - you can download maps for offline use when connected to WiFi and then you'll use very little data - it takes a bit of preparation but it works very well and the map sizes are actually not bad (When you define the map, you'll get a warning that it might use xGB of space but from my experience, the actual downloaded size ends up being much less than the estimate). In case you care, Pokemon is actually not a heavy user either. Facebook is easily the worst, especially if you don't turn disable videos from auto-playing as they do by default in both iOS and Android I think.