We usually use Giffgaff (on O2) and they have been generally good, but only allow 5Gb data roaming in the EU, although data speeds in Cussy have been excellent. Lebara (on Vodafone) are both cheaper and will allow use of full data allowance while roaming in Europe. Does anyone else from the UK use them, and how do you find performance in France?
I got a Martin Edwards MSE deal with Lebara a couple of years ago. I get 12 Gb for £6.90/m. The signal is fine in the NE and in France too - Normandy through to North Vienne - though I can’t remember which network they use and I can’t see it in my SMSs.
Madame P uses Giffgaff and ran up against their limit last time whereas I was okay.
It was a bit of a rigmarole to set up a hotspot but that was all.
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Thanks Mr. P.
I have an offer at £1.99 per month x 6 months for 20Gb, then £7.99 after. Presently paying £10 for 20Gb in the UK and 5Gb in France.
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I am on 99p month for 6 months with 5GB, unlimited calls and texts, roaming and 100 minutes international calls then £3.99. I use it in a phone or mobile wifi as needed. Not yet used it in EU.
For internet their APN is Lebara APN
I also have Smarty (Three) £5 month for 5GB unlimited calls and text and roaming. That has worked well in France.
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Another one for lebara, was £1.99 for 6 months at 30gb now about £6.99. Jumps from Orange or Free France or SFR. Use it as a hotspot for others and streaming music and films. The Reglo is an experiment in my home router.
Best deals for Lebara are usually from comparison sites. MSE etc.
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I use UK lebara too - MSE plans are good. There’s also offers like 'sign up a friend - up to £50 if you are interested. I recall they gave me a £10 credit - but I couldn’t use it to pay for the plan.
I think the plans give 100 international minutes a month - useful.
The UK one doesn’t let you roam for ever - they cut it off after a while, can’t remember how long so I stopped the plan, as I wasn’t using it anyway. EDIT - I mean you have to be back in the UK for it to ‘reset’.
Now they just require me to make a call, message or use data every 90 days. So I just turn on mobile data, wait a minute and the phone uses 1Mb data just doing ‘nothing’ - the charge is 1p and I’m good for the next 90 days.
When I had the plan service was fine. (It still is though I don’t make calls, send texts or use mobile data). Customer service has been fairly quick to answer.
FURTHER EDIT - I also have a giffgaff number and if I started a plan, I’d use lebara over giffgaff, they seem to be better priced. I like giffgaff though so I wouldn’t cease membership, but maybe you might need to keep the number and port it? If not, keep both 
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As discussed in a thread I started recently, I’m going for Expatfone, which is a VOIP service that doesn’t use a sim card. It runs off WiFi or the mobile data connection provided by a local sim card, which will be Reglo Mobile in my case (5€/month for 10GB data). In all other respects it works like a standard mobile phone number.
- Edit - sorry, I realise this doesn’t directly answer your question!
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Yes I am a happy UK Lebara user - I used to be on Vodafone but as Lebara runs on the Vodafone network in the UK I have noticed no difference except a smaller monthly bill.
My roaming experience with them is limited to a week in France last September but again I didn’t notice any issues at all.
As @Corona mentioned, I got my Lebara deal from USwitch.com
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On the roaming side of things, Giffgaff has been very good on the whole except for one occasion when I forgot to turn off auto-update on our computers and both tried to download major Windows updates at the same time - that completely used up my 5Gb and at 10p/megabyte thereafter became stupidly expensive. 20Gb will provide a substantial cushion for 2 weeks away being used as a hotspot for the computers, and maybe even allow a little youtube.
Well I am going to disagree, to roam you have to buy a bolt on. Thats extra cost to the fee already paid. If you run out of data as you have said its very expensive. If you return to the UK with data, as I did on a few occasions, that bolt on data gets used first. On one occasion I returned to France 1 week later to find no roaming data left as it had been all used up the previous week in the UK so I had to purchase another bolt on at more cost again. The idea that giff gaff is good and cheap is marketing BS. After that I left giff gaff. Lebara includes full data use whilst abroad and 100 international minutes.
I’m not sure if you are resident in France, but if you are, surely a cheap French sim card with generous data would be the solution? You can get 20GB for 5.80 Euros/month without contract from Reglombile and there are lots of similar value deals from other French providers. You can roam to the UK as well as the rest of Europe. We had a 4-sim card family account with BT Mobile and it’s now outlived its usefulness so I’m researching replacements for the kids, who remain in the UK and I have to say I am finding far more affordable deals for us in France compared to the UK for the kids.
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I’m a UK resident with maison secondaire that we visit about 4 weeks per year.
It’s probably not too difficult to buy a French SIM for the few weeks we need it, but I’d already been looking to possibly move on from Giffgaff. EE would be better because they are the only provider with mobile signal where I work, but I understand they don’t include roaming and their standard pricing is expensive.
I’m sorry John, your post isn’t clear to me. Are you saying that you MUST buy a bolt-on to roam, or that roaming in Europe is included (as I think) and for additional data you have to buy a bolt-on?
Not with Lebara. The advantage with them is that you can use all your data in Europe (or the UK), rather than being limited to a certain amount or having to pay for a bolt-on.
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What about Lycamobile? They are on EE in the UK.
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There was a reason I didn’t use them, though I forget what it was right now.
Sorry for the confusion, it was the case with giffgaff that in order to have roaming data you needed to purchase a bolt on, from memory that also had to be done whilst in the UK hence the high charge if you had not and not able to add a second bolt on whilst abroad. Could of course changed by now but that is how it worked when I was a customer.
Poor customer service, I have Lycamobile for a cctv camera in tbe UK but two previous attempts to do the same ended in me getting a last chance with Lycamobile sim, fingers crossed its OK at the moment
I don’t recall needing a bolt-on for Giffgaff to roam - been with them more than 10 years - but did with O2.
IIRC poor service was the reason I avoided Lycamobile, based on 3rd party experience.
It could well have changed and was more than 10 years ago I was with them.
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