One balance, 197 destinations.

What one balance across every border changes

The tedious part of travelling with data is not the price, it is the admin. A per trip eSIM means a purchase before you go, an install at the airport, a second purchase when the itinerary changes, and a profile you delete afterwards. Multiply that by a trip through three countries and you have spent more time managing connectivity than using it.

One balance removes most of it. The gigabytes belong to your account rather than to a country. The first time you use them somewhere new, the app sets up that destination's line and you install it with one tap. After that, refills arrive on the line you already have for as long as it is valid, so a second week in the same place needs nothing new on the phone. There is no QR code to hunt for, and no moment on a coach at 2am where you need data in order to buy data.

The global plan earns its keep the moment a trip touches a second country, or when you cannot yet say which countries it will touch. A week that starts in Lisbon and ends in Berlin is one balance and, because most of Europe runs on a single line, usually one install. A work trip that gains a city on the Wednesday draws on the same balance too. You never have to predict the itinerary at checkout, because the balance was never attached to the itinerary in the first place.

How the balance works, and what happens to what you do not use

You are buying a balance, not a subscription and not a countdown. It sits in your wallet in gigabytes and is spent wherever you happen to be. In most popular destinations a wallet gigabyte is a full local gigabyte, and the networks that cost more to reach draw at their own published rate, which the app shows before you use a byte there. Bigger sizes cost less per gigabyte, which is the only place the price ladder bends.

Nothing expires. That sentence is doing more work than it looks like: the industry standard is a plan that dies after 7, 15 or 30 days, and the data you paid for and did not use dies with it. Here, data leaves the balance only as you use it. Whatever was loaded onto a line and not used goes back to the balance when that line closes, ready for the next trip, next month or next year.

That changes how you should buy. With an expiring plan the rational move is to underbuy and top up in a panic; with a wallet the rational move is to buy the size that is cheapest per gigabyte and let the surplus sit. It is worth less to us per transaction and more to you over three trips, and we would rather have the third trip.

What the phone does when you land

Open the app when you land and choose to use your data there. If a line you already hold covers the destination, the data goes onto it straight away. If not, the app issues one, either for that country or a regional line that also covers its neighbours, and you install it with one tap. The line then attaches to a host network on the ground, and each country's coverage page names those carriers rather than describing them as premium local networks, so you can see in advance whose masts you will be on.

Land borders stay simple. Inside a regional line's area, such as most of Europe, the line you installed already covers the next country, so crossing needs no new install. Entering a destination outside that area takes one tap in the app to add its line, and the same balance pays for it. That holds across the whole 197 destination footprint, including the crossings people usually plan a second purchase around.

What happens when the balance runs low

Customers get at least 100 MB of rescue data once a month, loaded onto the line they are using when the balance runs out. Anyone who has bought from us in the last twelve months qualifies, and so does every subscriber. It is there for the gap between running out and topping up: the map you need before the taxi arrives, the boarding pass in an airport with no free wifi, the message to say the flight moved.

Topping up takes about ten seconds in the app. The gigabytes land in the same balance as the ones you already had, and while your line is valid the refill arrives on it with nothing new to install. No new QR code, and no window where the phone sits offline while something downloads.

The balance belongs to the account rather than to the handset. Change phones and the gigabytes are where you left them, ready for the next line you install. Finish a trip and there is nothing to cancel, nothing to delete, and nothing sitting on the phone counting down to zero while you are at home.

Common questions