US Roaming Add-Ons

[RACER83]

Hi...I'm new to Public Mobile, so any help is greatly appreciated as SIMON couldn't help me.

We are heading to the USA and I want to get the US Roaming Add-Ons for 40 days.

1 -  If I’m setup on AutoPay, can I just select my US roaming add-on and it will automatically be taken from my account like my regular monthly payments?

2 - Is there any way to make sure that I can use the US Roaming service for 40 days and not miss any hours at the end of each 10 day period as I read there is a 24hr period between when one 10 day period ends and the next begins.

3 - If I want to add-on another 10 days of US Roaming a few hours before it will expire, will my new 10 days start straight away?

Thanks for any feedback.

[RACER83]

Wow....thanks darlicious....very interesting info to look out into. I guess as the saying goes, you get what you are paying for.

Cheers.

[RACER83]

I appreciate your kind words esjliv.....

I hope when I move forward with the add-ons for the US, it goes easier than I think it will.

Best wishes.

[darlicious]

@RACER83 

Your welcome. 10 Day US Roaming add ons are not ideal for longer trips but they are reasonable. The hassle free "Roam like Home" options offered by other providers come at a price usually $10 per day capped at $180 per month plus the cost of your monthly plan. 3×$20 US roaming talk, text+data plan+$15 pm plan=$75 so a considerable savings over other providers. Even mint mobile's minimum 90 day plan at 3×US$15/4gb plan=$45/3months+$15 pm plan will offer you considerable savings over other providers. Just be sure if you choose that option that you don't allow our pm sim card to connect to a US tower causing it to cancel your call forwarding to a voip (ie fongo). Mint mobile sim cards are available to be shipped to Canada thru B&H Photo.

To contact customer support click below:

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

To pre-verify your account include your full name, address, email, phone # and 4 digit acct pin #.

[RACER83]

Thanks pkaraa....all the info has been helpful (although some of it frustrating as it seems far more complicated than it needs to be)  I now have what I need. Thank you again.

[esjliv]

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@RACER83 wrote:

Thank you for that info Darlicious.....I think I now have all the info I need.

At my age of nearly 72 though, I cannot understand why it has to be this complicated for 40

days of "roaming" use in the USA. Am I the only one thinking that way.

Anyway...thank you to all who responded and I understand completely about those of you who

suggested getting another sim card from a US provider.

All the Best.

---

@RACER83  - rest assured you are not the only one thinking this way. There are some known challenges with the Roaming options and features.

I think you have done fantastic with your clear questions and communications to everyone here.

Safe travels!

[RACER83]

Thank you Yummy....much appreciated.

[RACER83]

Thank you for that info Darlicious.....I think I now have all the info I need.

At my age of nearly 72 though, I cannot understand why it has to be this complicated for 40

days of "roaming" use in the USA. Am I the only one thinking that way.

Anyway...thank you to all who responded and I understand completely about those of you who

suggested getting another sim card from a US provider.

All the Best.

[darlicious · Accepted solution]

@RACER83 

Here is some info you may find useful. Perhaps look into getting mint mobile for your time in the US or another US provider. Canadian Cell Supplies offers prepaid US provider sim cards.

Spoiler

Here is some info about US roaming add ons that should help you.....

1. While you have to have an active plan to purchase and use US roaming add ons the type of plan you have does not affect the roaming add ons features.
2. US roaming add ons start the moment you confirm and submit your purchase in your self serve account and expire 240 hours later (10 days×24 hours).
3. You can pre-load the funds needed to purchase the add ons in your self serve account so you only have to log in, select the US roaming add on and then confirm and submit your purchase.
4. Wait til late as possible to purchase since they are immediately valid so on free wifi at the destination airport or stopping shortly before the border at mcd's or timmy's to buy the add on while on free wifi.
5. If you are staying longer than 10 days you must wait a minimum of 24 hours to purchase the same US roaming add on or contact the moderators to add it before the waiting period ends.
6. If you have two US roaming add ons with a talk feature that overlap the talk feature basically gets disabled. Avoid this....but you will have to get one removed by a moderator to get your calling feature back if this happens.
7. After purchase reboot your phone and manually select either at&t or T-mobile to get better reception. Some areas have better coverage by either provider so when travelling around the US you will be better served by choosing the provider with better signal strength by locale.
8. You will recieve incoming texts without any US roaming add ons. Adding the fongo app and textnow app for use on wifi are good to use for a back up plan or you could call forward your pm phone # to your fongo # before you leave Canada and purchase just the US data roaming add on. Fongo also works on mobile data (1 min=0.5mb/100 min=50mb) so you could still recieve incoming pm texts, recieve incoming pm calls to your fongo #/app, outgoing calls from your fongo number and outgoing  texts from textnow for free or small fee from fongo.
9. All US roaming add ons have either unlimted text, talk or both. Only data has limits depending on your purchase 250mb/500mb/1gb. Once the data is consumed it will just stop you could then purchase different roaming add on, wait 24 hr to buy or contact the moderator to buy the same US roaming add on again. (* except talk as previously mentioned.)

Happy travels and Stay--Safe!

Spoiler

Options for your account and service....

1. You can turn off autopay and allow the account to suspend at the of your current 30 day cycle but this is your least advantageous option. Pay and reactivate by day 85 or so.
2. If you have an account balance that exceeds your plan amount then you need to suspend via the lost/stolen feature in your account before midnight eastern on the evening of your renewal. Then on day 85 or so resume your service to pay and reactivate.
3. Suspending via lost/stolen before midnight eastern will keep your voicemail active allowing you retrieve voicemail and any verification sent by phone calls. However your rewards will not be applied to your account. CSA contact after paying and reactivating is necessary to have the rewards applied manually.
4. Voicemail can be accessed by calling your pm number from a different phone by calling your phone # and pressing * once connected and entering your 4 digit voicemail pin #.
5. If you don't have an account balance or enough balance to cover your plan amount you can suspend via lost/stolen after midnight but before 2 am eastern on the day of your renewal. Once your rewards have been applied (usually by 12:15 am et) then suspend your account. Voicemail access will be lost.
6. Switching to the $15 plan with rewards helping to cover a partial or full amount of your plan allows you to call forward your pm number to your fongo number. Be sure to perform all call forwarding while in Canada. Now any incoming calling to your pm number will ring thru to your fongo number while on wifi or mobile data (w/a local or global sim card) You can access your fongo voicemail for all voicemail messages.

Most important mark on your calendar day 85 of your suspension and day 90. Do not forget when you must unsuspend your account via lost/stolen and/or pay and reactivate your service so you don't lose your phone number and account. Happy travels!

To contact customer support click below:

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

To pre-verify your account include your full name, address, email, phone # and 4 digit acct pin #.

[pkaraa]

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@RACER83 wrote:

Hi...I'm new to Public Mobile, so any help is greatly appreciated as SIMON couldn't help me.

We are heading to the USA and I want to get the US Roaming Add-Ons for 40 days.

1 -  If I’m setup on AutoPay, can I just select my US roaming add-on and it will automatically be taken from my account like my regular monthly payments?

2 - Is there any way to make sure that I can use the US Roaming service for 40 days and not miss any hours at the end of each 10 day period as I read there is a 24hr period between when one 10 day period ends and the next begins.

3 - If I want to add-on another 10 days of US Roaming a few hours before it will expire, will my new 10 days start straight away?

Thanks for any feedback.

---

You have all the information about US roaming add-on. 

So Autopay wont work, you need to top-up your account balance to the price of the add-on, that you can do for all 4 add-on purchases that will save your time. Remember you renewal will come once or twice in those 40 days and if you have balance, it will be charged from the balance, not from the autopay credit card.  

next, yes, 24 hrs gap between the expiry of previous add-on and purchase of new add-on.

next, if purchased after 24 hours of expiry of previous add-on, next add-on is in effect right away.

Buying a local SIM is a good option too and suspend your account so you save the plan funds and when you are back just before coming back to Canada re-activate.

[Yummy]

US roaming Talk cannot be stacked. Next one has to be purchased after initial expire but you have to wait 24 hours.

You do not need to reach to CSA as you can purchase add-on yourself. You would need access to Internet, though.

Purchasing an add-on after logging in into your PM account is a two-step process. You need to load funds first and then purchase add on.

1. Add funds to your PM account: Any funds to buy add-ons come from your balance, so manually add funds to your available balance first.
2. Buy Add-On: You will actually buy the add-on after you add funds to your account or else you won't have funds to actually buy the add-on. Funds to buy add-on come from Your account (after adding funds in step #1) and not directly from your credit card.

[RACER83]

Very useful info....as I'm new to all this and not tech savvy, I read carefully.

Thanks again.

[RACER83]

Thank you...lots to learn.

Will check it all out carefully.

Thanks again.

[0PX9O4]

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@RACER83 wrote:

Thanks for the reply.

If I had to talk to a CS agent to get another 10 days, how long does it take to get a reply?

---

Typically a few business hours for them to respond to your private message. The agents work from Mon-Sun 6AM-10PM EST currently

[RACER83]

Thanks for the suggestions. I am 72 and not very tech savvy re this stuff.

So I guess I'd have to add the $ before getting my US roaming add-on.

Thanks again

[RACER83]

Thanks for the reply.

If I had to talk to a CS agent to get another 10 days, how long does it take to get a reply?

[Anonymous]

 @RACER83 :1. No. 2 and 3:

Intending to use roaming over 10 days is a bit tricky. There is a silly re-buy delay period. Do NOT buy other talk components while one is still active.

When you buy a roaming add-on make note of the specific time you bought it. Exactly 240 hours later it will expire. At this point, if you want to have uninterrupted service: option 1: you could ask the CSA's to re-buy an add-on for you. Or option 2: Buy a different named add-on. ie. Say you bought the talk/text/data bundle. 240 hours later you could buy the talk/text bundle. Or talk. Or text. But you can't yet re-buy the same bundle you had at first yourself.

Data is the same. But you can buy any of the other named buckets of data.

[Anonymous]

@RACER83 

For U.S. Roaming 10 day packages
Unlimited U.S. Talk, Text and 250MB Data Bundle = $20
Unlimited U.S. Talk and Text Bundle = $15
Unlimited U.S. Talk Only = $8
Unlimited U.S. Text Only = $8
U.S. Data Only 10 day packages
250MB = $10
500MB = $15
1GB = $20

when you visit U.S. then Purchase it,

sign in to Self-Serve, to review your account,

How To Purchase Add-Ons Using Your Self-Serve Account

Follow these steps:

1. Click on ‘Purchase Add- Ons’ on the Overview tab and scroll down to the Add-On calculator.
2. Click the plus sign (+) to add and the minus sign (-) to remove selected Add-ons.
3. When you’ve added all your desired Add-Ons, click ‘Buy Add-Ons’ or ‘Make a Payment’ below the calculator:
   • You will see ‘Make a Payment’ instead of ‘Buy Add-Ons’
4. Select ‘Confirm my purchase’,

5. after purchase successful you have to do Rebooting your phone
   what is meant by rebooting the device turn off and turn it back on.

review of Add-ons visit Here link...

make sure enable roaming on,
Try manually selecting either of  AT&T or T-Mobile, whichever works best for you,
for Re-Purchase Add-ons you need to wait 25 hours after the expiry first Purchase Add-ons or you need to Contact Customer Support Agent by CS_Agent, to them do it for you...

• send a private message to Customer Support Agent by Click Here link..

[softech]

@RACER83 

1. No Autopay would not work to auto paying for US roaming.  Autopay is used ONLY for regular monthly renewal, not any addon purchase.  In your case, it won't work

2. It is too expensive to use Roaming for 40 days, and trust me too much trouble.   (my suggestion below)

3. you cannot add the same roaming add-on right away or before it expires. you have to wait 24 hours after it expires

the best thing to do , since it is 40 days, is to buy local US prepaid data.  It is CHEAPER and gives you A LOT MORE data

You can use a VoIP app, like TextNow.  It will give you another phone number and you can use the app to call US and Canada for free.  You can also forward all your PM voice call to the VoIP app number

If you need text for 2FA, you need to arrange ahead and change it to email or use authenticator app instead

[0PX9O4]

Hi @RACER83 

Unfortunately there's no way to buy more than 1 roaming add-on at a time, and you cannot get them to auto-renew either. You will have to buy a new add-on every 10 days, and they kick in immediately once they are bought. This means you can buy another add-on immediately after 1 has expired. Sometimes the link to purchase the exact same type of roaming add-on doesn't appear until a few hours after the expiry of the already-purchased roaming add-on, but there have been conflicting reports about this.

Two ways to get around this would be to either buy a different roaming add-on (voice and text instead of voice, text, and data), or to message @CS_Agent to have them add it manually.

All the best!