Fido Roam Price Increase?

[3699]

I started my service a little over a year ago with Fido. One of the main reasons was that I liked their Roam Like Home option @ $5.00 per day and billing of up to 10 days per month only. Total $50.00 per month.

With Fido's new pricing policies it is now $7.00 per day and billing up to 15 days per mont. Total $105.00 

I like many Canadians spend a good deal of my vacation time in the US and I believe an increase of 110% is unwarranted and is strickly a financial grab by the parent Rogers. 

My only alternative is to look at Telus Canada and there Canada-US package which in my case if they hold their rates would save me several hundred dollars per year.

Not a happy Fido puppy.

*** Edited title for clarity ***

[Raven123]

Fast forward to today, the fees are now 12.00 a day from 10.00 and a monthly amount of 24 days instead of 15 days that's a huge increase, going to cancel my service.  
in 4 years you go from 5.00 to 12.00 a day?????

[HM2018]

Actually it's up to 20 days not 24. Nonetheless I started in 2016 and paid up to $50/ a month and now within only 6 years $240/ month so almost 5 times as much.. cancelling service is an option but other providers aren't better. Pay per use doesn't seem to be an option anymore, so I turn roaming off and use Wi-Fi or nothing at all. It's inconvenient at times but they don't get $12 for a phone call and/ or some data.

I think the number of days increases after they see what the max number of days is people use the service, so they don't have to 'pay' for it. The whole 'the rest is on us' speech is just a nice front that hardly anyone will benefit from anymore.

[meow604]

They're doing this because they know Covid is reopening soon, and everybody will travel. 

[HM2018]

You do realize that this thread is almost 3 years old and nobody was even thinking of covid back then!?

[HM2018]

Not happy either.

75% increase in less than 3 months!!!

In March you increased the number of days to 15, a $30 (50%) increase!!! and now you added another dollar per day (16%) going to a total of $105 from $60 just a few months back.

I understand a cost increase but come on people stay within reason. If you open up the roam to non pulse plans that's your decision and those with non pulse plans should have an increased cost. Everyone with a pulse plan already pays more to have roam included!! So why are we paying even more now??

[botex]

I'm Fido customer for years.

Because of enormous increasing of roaming rates, I started to shop around.

Too bad Fido is not taking care of loyal customers, for them, money comes first and customer last.

[FidoRanya]

Hey @botex , 

Welcome to the Community! 

Thanks for sharing your feedback with us. You definitely don't come last, this is not how we want you to feel

We do our best to keep our offers competitive.I understand where you're coming from ,the reality however is that there are increaseed costs with offering such services and these changes help us balance it out. 

We really want to keep you with us!  We do offer exclusive perks with our plans such as Spotify Premium, Data Bytes, FidoTRADE, Fido Xtra and much more that you can benefit from! You can find out more by clicking here . 

While I can't change the rate of Fido Roam, I can make sure that you have the best available plan!

[botex]

Increased costs are fine and we could understand that, but double the price in one year is not right.

I had (still have except roaming)  a perfect plan with Fido for years, a lots of data, and Fido ruined everything with greedy. Just myself recommend Fido to minimum 10 people in last two years. Now I feel bad about it.

I’m frequent flyer to USA and this is not working for me anymore. My last bill $175 speaks for itself.

[canoedunk]

I agree with you. Increasing the roaming daily rate by 40% and the maximum monthly rate by 110% does not seem reasonable. How can Fido justify this increase?

I'm not happy with this increase either and not satisfied with the Fido (non) response that they are working to keep our costs low while travelling. If you are working to keep our costs low you are doing a very poor job of it based on this price increase.

@Fido: A better response would be more transparent about the alleged "increased costs associated with offering this service". Can you tell us more about these increased costs and how they make this price increase necessary? When you increase your price so dramatically without a good explanation, it looks really bad on you.

[FidoAmanda]

Hey @Cawtau! We took a closer look over our info and it looks like we got some of our wires crossed. Sorry about that, that's our bad!

The correct info is that Fido Roam daily charge is actually not counted in the $100 international data roaming cap but rather the $100 international data roaming cap applies only to charges related to overusing the data that comes with your plan. 

It's really too bad to hear, @botex. I assure you that it was not our intention to have any of our customers feel this way when it comes to the recent changes. We're here for you if you change your mind about checking out your plan options. 

[botex]

I’m open to any suggestions if you can upgrade my account or find better option for me.

[FidoCharles]

Hey @botex

You can definitely contact us so we check that out with you

[botex]

Hi Guys,

have to inform you that Fido support was pretty much useless regarding helping about roaming.

After they offered to help and try to find the best possible plan for me, instead of offering any solution I got offer from Fido for more data & more expensive plan 😂😂

What a joke....

[Cawtau]

Hello Botex,

  Welcome to the community!

  In fairness to the moderators and customer service, you did ask for options upgrading your account:

@botex wrote:

I’m open to any suggestions if you can upgrade my account or find better option for me.

  The only options for roaming are Fido Roam or opting out and travelling on a pay-per-use basis.

Cheers

[botex]

In fairness to moderators and customer service, I was asking to find me a better plan to use roaming more efficiently, and  not to offer me more data for +$10 per month.

I was contacted maybe a year ago to transfer my account to Fido pulse plan as this suits better my need when travel.

Now, I’m stuck with $105+tax roaming USA bill plus charge for my regural bill...

And with a pulse plan I can’t purchase travel anymore...in reality that means just one txt replied while in USA it cost me $7.

What a nonsense!

Lets be honest here, are any of you moderators or customer service agents are willing to pay $105 for roaming in USA?

[patrickchan]

just use an USA simcard (always cheaper then Canada sim card anyday), either call forward ur Fido mobile number to the USA number. or setup voicemail that tells others your USA number. 

[botex]

I don’t want to use call forward or voicemail.

The reason I signed up for pulse plan are great feautures Fido offered.

In one year Fido change everything and practically tricked all users, who changed previous plan or provider to Fido pulse plan.

I’m looking for new a provider as Fido is doing nothing to protect loyal customers.

I’m getting every month now $170 bill , before was $105.

Any suggestion?

[FidoPierre]

Hey @botex, 

We're always working on getting the best options for our customers and at this time these FidoROAM rates are really the best we have available.  

It's important to also keep in mind that you're only charged for the days you actually use the service while roaming. Once you have usage registered for that day, you get full access to your plan for either $7 in the U.S or $12 internationally. 
 

You get quite a bit of value in relation to being able to use what's in your regular plan and not have to otherwise limit your usage differently while you're traveling. This works very well for a lot of our customers. 

[botex]

We understand that these rates are the best Fido can offer at the moment.

The point is that these rates are not competitive and for sure Fido will lose costumers.

Second thing, you guys (Fido) must stop saying how this is a great thing and it works very well for a lot of your customers.....because it's not!!

Let me remind you what happened in last year. I consider myself average customer who travels a lot in the USA and need roaming option every month.

1. - A year ago I had 'regular' FIDO plan for $60  and every month when traveling I purchased travel pack for extra $40, and I was covered full month for roaming services.   For $100 per month....great deal !! 
2. - Then I received a call from Fido representative to switch to Fido pulse plan  ($65) with more data and great roaming option. $5 per day (and only when you use roaming)  and with max 10 days billing period! What a great idea, so convenient to use and still a great price! If I stay in the USA more than 10 days,  my bill was $115 per month! I was so pleased, I even recommended Fido to my friends, and some of them ditched their providers because of me (don't ask me how I feel now...)
3. - A few months everything was great, and that started increasing the price, first for $6 per day. Not happy, but could understand that Fido needs to keep profit on a certain level. If I stay more than 10 days in the USA my bill is $125 per month. Not great, but still ok...
4. And then Fido announced "great deal" (yes, I actually received that kind of email) , travel pack is not existing anymore, if you need roaming you will have to pay $7 per day with 15 days billing period.  What a deal!! (sarcastic remark) ....for roaming services in the USA if you stay more than 15 days you have to pay "only" $105 + $65 (pulse plan). What a joke,  $170 for roaming services!   So Greedy...

In the end, this option $7 per day is only good for someone who uses roaming for 1-2 days per month.

All users who purchased before travel pack or staying 7+ days find this option unacceptable. And Fido did not offer any alternative for frequent travelers. Its take it or leave it.

[FidoAmanda]

Hey everyone! 

I just wanted to add an update to this thread as we recently made some enhancements to our services in regards to how roaming caps are applied.

As of May 29th, Fido Roam will be combined with all other data roaming pay-per-use fees under a single $100 cap. This means that charges for Fido Roam will now be counted towards the $100 international data roaming cap.

Other changes that took effect as of May 29th include:

- Launch of a self-serve portal, allowing customers to manage certain preferences on their account.

- Roaming notifications will go to the account holder in addition to the individual device users.

- The $50 data cap and $100 roaming cap will be applied at the account level if your account has multiple data plans rather than separate caps for each data plan.

Hope this helps!