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We are now retired snowbirds again after Covid & Looking for US AND Canadian provider, data AND cell

  • 25 March 2023
  • 7 replies
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So I don’t know if this is offered to all Bell clients , but it was sent to me from a friend who has other bell services and I think this is offered to only those who also have bell internet.
 

Comments please as we just spent way too much at 11.00/ day even though we tried to limit our usage.

It adds up fast if your gone for more than a couple of weeks , seems Koodo would or should have a snowbird type plan to retain customers traveling south of the border for extended periods of time as the US carriers are much more “all inclusive “ competitive than they once were. 
 

I have very much enjoyed my years with Koodo , is it time to switch?

Tks

Pete

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Best answer by Bernard Koodo 26 March 2023, 18:27

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Userlevel 7
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@steelwrk1 . First of all thank you for being a long time Koodo customer! Truly appreciated!  We have relatively few ‘snowbird’ customers so the demand for Canadian/US plans is vey limited. However, TELUS who is sister brand does have some appealing offers and the switch from Koodo to TELUS should be easy. You can keep your number and don’t even have to buy a new phone if the ones you have re working well. The current TELUS offers (based on 2 lines) in your province are as below:

To be honest I don’t think anyone needs 40gb a month, especially if you have access to wi-fi down south.  Which means the $62.50 plan a month would work perfectly fine for you. Let us know if you have any other question. Otherwise you could just order a couple of SIMs on telus.com (and save the $50 connection fee charged in stores) and make the switch. I hope this helps!

P.S. My fave place in Florida is Anna-Maria Island! :-) 

Userlevel 7
Badge +4

So I don’t know if this is offered to all Bell clients , but it was sent to me from a friend who has other bell services and I think this is offered to only those who also have bell internet.
 

Comments please as we just spent way too much at 11.00/ day even though we tried to limit our usage.

It adds up fast if your gone for more than a couple of weeks , seems Koodo would or should have a snowbird type plan to retain customers traveling south of the border for extended periods of time as the US carriers are much more “all inclusive “ competitive than they once were. 
 

I have very much enjoyed my years with Koodo , is it time to switch?

Tks

Pete

Have you considered putting your plan on Seasonal Hold? It does not make sense to be spending so much on Easy Roam when you could get a prepaid plan in the U.S. with AT&T. You will get unlimited calls and text messages in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. https://www.att.com/prepaid/plans/

Userlevel 7
Badge +4

@steelwrk1 . The above is an option. @MilkyWay  is not wrong. However, between Seasonal hold monthly fee plus the ATT monthly plan around $40-$50 Canadian, plus having a number none of your contacts would have it may not make sense. Of course the choice is yours. The TELUS plan you would have all year around of course without a hassle. 

Userlevel 3

I am a snowbird as well, 12 years spending 5 months in California. I used to put a message on my (prepaid) koodo acount that I could be reached at my california number or to leave a message that I would check for every few days, then I’d insert a US sim. If you go seasonal hold, your callers cannot leave a message. With prepaid, you can buy roaming text packages (talk roaming is incompatible at the moment). I  have a dual sim phone and add a Red Pocket sim while in the US. it’s approx US$90 per year paid in advance, uses ATT network, and gives 1000 minutes US/Can/Mex, unlimited international texting, and 1GB data (works out to be around US$8.25 pm). If Koodo ever works out their pre-paid talk booster roaming incompatibility, then Koodo prepaid is ideal for snowbirds, that’s why I’ve been with them for so long (though, because I can’t receive calls from Canada on Koodo anymore, I’m back to the message on my voicemail about me being out of the country). My husband used Telus’ US/Canadian plan and it roamed well, but he had a heck of a time getting Telus to remove the US roaming feature when he returned to Canada, he was paying for US that he wasn’t using, so he moved carriers. Too bad, because we are Telus customers for landline, Optik tv, internet, shareholders! There are a million MVNO services in the US, get ATT compatible, that you can try like H2O wireless, Red Pocket, Mint, even Spectrum Mobile for Spectrum customers. Good luck, you can find a very economical solution as a snowbird.

Userlevel 7
Badge +4

For extended US stay, check out AT&T Canada/US/Mexico prepaid (annual plan).

Hello and thank every for their comments.

i am texting from a new supplier, Bell believe it or not!

i looked long and hard. Have been a Koodo customer for some 14 years or so and did not want to go. 


I had the Koodo plan 55.00 for 20 gigs unlimited calling and texting in Canada with a 5.00 add on allowing me to call to USA for 5 cents a moment I believe.
 

it Was a great plan but traveling south was always a challenge. This year @ 11.00 per day was just too much .

Final straw was last week Koodo sent me a notice that my old plan was now going to have a 5.00/ month extra charge??? I thought they were not changeable. 

I ended up switching to Bell . Perhaps they gave me a good deal to pull me over but I’m a winner now.

I now have what’s called ULTD share Ultimate BYOD 40 US .

( it is similar to the above pic I posted for Ultimate 40 - CAN / US BUT That requires two lines )

it has a list price of 75.00/ month but they dropped it by 20.00 to 55.00 per month and took off another 5.00 per month for year one.

No term contract , cancel anytime.
 

It was 50.00 for them to mail me a new. SIM card ( and set up charge ? or something like that ), which I received  in two or theee days . They also have discounted the 50.00 to 25.00 for the SIM card and initial connection 

 

it was such a good deal to have unlimited same telephone number calling while in Canada AND the states.  

I also have unlimited data but it slowes down after 40 gigs.

A comment above mentioned ; not really needing the 40 gigs /month , I almost never use more than 20 gigs and it’s true but I have a few times over the years when using my cell phone as a hot spot for my laptop.

At any rate I am yet to get a bill and have no experience with thé quality but to travel all over Canada and the States with never another extra charge and seamless constant billing for pretty much unlimited cell and data use has me feeling pretty good.

i had a good run with Koodo and will try to post back here after 6 months of use to see if the service is as good as Koodo’s has always been to me.

 

One note is that Telus retention tried to keep me by offering a very good deal once they saw I was leaving but it’s time to try something new and it’s amazingly cheap compared to what I had AND it is a snowbird’s dream, no more extras!

thank you all again for help and comments

very best regards to all,

Pete

 

 

Userlevel 3

Thank you for posting. I am a snowbird, too, but have a dual sim card phone where I run Koodo and an ATT MVNO plan, Red Pocket. Enormously disappointed with Koodo’s lack of ability to allow me to roam this season in the US on prepaid. I was just informed 2 days ago by a 3rd Koodo rep that my issue was not my phone but that my prepaid plan provides 3G data, not 4G data, and Koodo does not provision VoLTE for prepaid unless we are have 4G plans. So, after all my community posts here on my lack of voice US booster service, I finally know why it wasn’t working. Nothing to do with 5G (I have a 5G phone), nothing to do with “whitelisting” (I’m whitelisted with Tmobile and ATT), etc. I wish Koodo advised 3G customers that we aren’t getting VoLTE and we can’t roam in the US, the information on the website is very misleading. All the more reason for me to be looking at Bell once I’ve used up my Canadian Koodo boosters. I’m sad to leave, too, have been with Koodo for 8 years.