Yahoo Finance Boomers lashed over $500 travel bill: ‘Squandering inheritance’
An Aussie man joked the bill was “why Boomers shouldn’t be allowed on the internet”.
An Aussie man has jokingly hit out at his Boomer parents after he found out they spent nearly $500 on international roaming fees. His parents were hit with a huge bill after spending nearly three weeks travelling in Italy and Istanbul.
Henry Hooper, general manager of travel platform Klook, took to the brand’s social media to share his mock outrage after discovering his parents’ eye-watering $445.95 Optus phone bill. He said his parents were “squandering my inheritance on roaming fees” and this was “why Boomers shouldn’t be allowed on the internet”.
Hooper told Yahoo Finance the video was a joke and said he honestly thought his parents “should spend all their money on travel” if they wanted. His dad said there would be more bills “to come”.
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“The point of my video was to have a laugh with my parents who honestly value convenience above perhaps money at this point, which is fair enough,” Hooper said.
“It’s easy to leave your phone roaming fees on and when you go overseas, you don’t think about it and you just get this bill.”
Hooper said he thinks international roaming fees should be a thing of the past given there are now “enormously cheaper” options available for travellers, such as eSIMs. He reckons this is particularly important given “times are tough” right now.
“I would never use roaming ever again. I would never buy a physical SIM card at airports ever again,” he said.
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Gen Z's also hit with big phone bills
Of course, it’s not just older Aussies who are guilty of getting hit with big international roaming fees. 26-year-old Jess Clarke was hit with a $750 phone bill after returning from her first big overseas holiday.
Clarke had specifically bought a travel SIM before her holiday but lost it while she was in Croatia. Needing access to data, she decided to turn her regular phone data back on.
She said she only used her phone overseas for about a week but this was still long enough to rack up a huge international roaming bill.
“I felt absolutely sick when I opened it. I had organised so many things for this trip, and had been saving in the lead-up, so it was deflating to be slammed with this bill,” she told Yahoo Finance.
“I knew it would be big, but I didn’t think it’d be this big. I was a student at the time, so this bill caused a lot of anxiety. I went on a payment plan to pay it off.”
There are cheaper options available
If you want to avoid international roaming fees, there are a bunch of different ways to stay connected while overseas. That includes prepaid travel SIMs, eSIMs, local SIM cards and global roaming packs.
Hooper himself is a fan of eSIMs, which are sold through his employer Klook. eSIMs are digital SIM cards that you can use instead of a physical SIM card to connect to a local mobile network.
Hooper said he understands why some people are reluctant to use them and noted he didn’t use them until he was given one for free from a friend.
“I think there is this enormous mental hurdle [around eSIMs] that people don’t know if it is going to work and can’t live without Instagram or TikTok for five minutes,” he told Yahoo Finance.
“People’s perception of the risk of not having connection to data outweighs the reward of potentially an enormously cheaper solution to roaming in general.”
Following the response to Hooper’s video, Klook is now offering free eSIMs, up to $10, for Aussies who use the code ‘FREEESIM’. The eSIMs are available across more than 200 destinations.
“People can go give one to their parents and I think if their parents use one … and basically if they experience and use it, I don’t think they’ll ever use roaming ever again,” Hooper said.
If you decide to go with an international roaming plan, Belong head of product Aaliah Eggins-Bryson recommended looking for a pre-paid option.
“When data is charged in per-megabyte increments, it makes it really hard to control your spend," she told Yahoo Finance
"Some mobile providers offer both so it’s best to check before you go overseas and start racking up a massive bill."
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