We have all experienced it at least once: we quietly return from a vacation and find an exorbitant phone bill when he returns. It's the classic double penalty of the first day of school! However, there are many good tips for making free calls from abroad today. Yes, yes, we did say free of charge. Here are all our tips to stop being trapped!
Before you leave
End of roaming in Europe
Since June 2017, telephone operators can no longer charge "off-package" fees when you surf or surf the Internet outside your national operator's country. This measure is valid in the 28 countries of the European Union only! Of course, the volume of data available or call duration remains unchanged from that of your basic package.
Check with your telephone operator before you leave
Although it may seem obvious, a short phone call to your operator before going on holiday is never superfluous. Most operators now offer very attractive offers with special packages of a limited duration to be subscribed according to your destination. And the price of your communication from abroad to France, and sometimes even to other countries, can become almost derisory. Another possibility: sometimes it is enough to change the package and take one with an interesting option in case of travel abroad, and for a few more euros, you will be protected from the cursed out of package. However, there are some areas of the world where telephone operators do not have a suitable solution and the minute is expensive, often due to the lack of agreements with local telephone companies. This is the case, for example, in Cuba...
Disable the internet function of your phone
Another common pitfall: you forget to disable cellular data abroad and keep the 3G/4G running at full capacity during your stay. Ruin assured! And the sum can be colossal, with a number with several zeros on the way back... To avoid this financial abyss, disable this function and 3G/4G in your smartphone (in settings) as soon as you are installed in the plane, before taking off. You are thus sure not to forget to do it on arrival!
Abroad: use the free local wifi
Today, wherever you are in the world, and outside very mountainous or desert areas, you will find free wifi access points everywhere! So, unless you go live with the nomads in a yurt in the middle of the Gobi desert (where you won't have wifi), enjoy it. Cafés, restaurants, hotels offer this service free of charge if you are a customer. Just ask them for the access code and you can use them for free and unlimited calls from anywhere in the world. And for the most broke, many cities around the world also have free wifi access from their city centres.
If you have installed Facebook Messenger on your phone, you can have phone conversations with your Facebook friends who have installed the app. They are of very good quality and free of charge whatever the duration. You can even make a video chat if the wifi connection is good enough.
The instant chat application has improved considerably recently. You can now not only send written messages, but also phone your friends who have the app and talk to them for hours free of charge. And, as on Facebook Messenger, you can make instant video chats. But unlike Facebook Messenger, you can leave voice messages if the person you are trying to reach is not available
Skype
This app has long proven its worth on the market, just install it on your smartphone and have an ID and go! You can call all your friends who are also on Skype for free from Skype and even have video conversations. It's also completely free!
Viber
This app offers the same features as WhatsApp and Skype. But it tends to bug from time to time.
What if your loved ones don't have any of these apps?
And that's the problem! You can very well be a super geek, or a super geekette, have all your apps, but have a relative who doesn't know anything about it and doesn't understand it! So what can you do in these cases to make a phone call without having to pay for it from abroad? Well, we recommend the "World & You" app available only at Bouygues and for all packages including those without commitment (from €9.90 per month). From this app, you can call French mobiles and landlines for free and unlimited. You can also send messages for free from the app, but you must also reply from the app otherwise it is not free... So remember to switch between the app and your phone screen only, because you will receive the messages on your phone and not on the app. But "World & You" is really very practical and saves a lot of money!
Tips for iPhone owners: free calls and messages to and from abroad (iMessages and Facetime)
From the moment you are connected via wifi, if you have an iPhone, you can call all your friends who have an iPhone for free, regardless of your operator and wherever you are on the planet. Simply use the Facetime/phone or Facetime/Video function. You can also send iMessages (technical name of SMS messages that go through the Internet) which then appear in blue color on your screen. Warning: if it's green, it's because your correspondent doesn't have an iPhone and it will therefore be charged! Fortunately, you can find out if this is the case before you even send the message, because the name of your correspondent will then be green and not blue. At the very least: your friends who don't have an iPhone may feel abandoned. At that point, you'll have to go back to the apps!
Buy a local SIM card
If you want to have Internet everywhere (and not only in wifi coverage areas) and be reachable without paying for phone calls (this is the case for all French packages abroad), the easiest solution is to take a local package without commitment. All you have to do is go to the shop of a telephone operator in the country where you are on holiday, buy a SIM card and the non-binding package that goes with it. Rates vary according to the country, but in general, for an average of 40 euros, we have one month of unlimited calls in the country with unlimited local SMS, but also from 1 to 3 Gigas of internet envelope that we can use for different applications like WhatsApp, Facebook, Viber.... Simply insert this local SIM card into your phone and store your French SIM card carefully until the end of your holiday. You can then share your foreign mobile number with your family and friends on your Facebook page or other applications. You will thus avoid any risk of extra charge with your French phone during your stay.
Once you have reached the end of your communication or internet credit, you will just have to top it up by buying a top-up card (usually consisting of codes to enter into your phone) in a telephone operator's shop, or in supermarkets and tobacco shops.
Another possibility that is increasingly being offered by telephone operators is the possibility of recharging this telephone credit by purchasing this recharge directly on the opérateur website; the telephone credit is therefore recharged directly on your telephone (no need to travel to collect a recharge)
