Vodafone announced this morning that it’s removed the $5/day roaming fee for customers travelling to New Zealand on Red and SIM Only plans using their Red Roaming product, and a new relationship with Qantas to offer bonus points on new Qantas Red plans.
Since the $5 day Red Roaming service was started by Vodafone in 2013, they’ve racked up some impressive figures:
According to company figures, $5 Roaming has been used more than three million times and customers have used 462 million megabytes (462 Terabytes) of data while roaming since the start of 2014.
We tested our the Red Roaming offer back in 2013 and found that you need to weigh up the cost vs convenience of it when you consider the option of being able to purchase a SIM in your destination country. Today’s announcement changes that – at least for those travelling to New Zealand as the cost to take your mobile to NZ is now nothing.
This is great news for anyone who is planning more than a couple of days across the Tasman, and makes staying in touch with friends and family cheaper than ever while you’re there.
The updated Red Roaming coverage map now has a new yellow colour:
We hope to see similar agreements put in place for other countries on Vodafone’s Red Roaming list in future.
Qantas Red
The second announcement made by Vodafone today is that Qantas Frequent Flyers can now earn up to 15,000 Qantas Points by connecting, renewing or upgrading online to a new 24 month Qantas Red plan with Vodafone. The eligable plans and rewards are:
- $80 plan: 4,000 points
- $100 plan: 5,000 points
- $130 plan: 7,500 points
The new Qantas Points offer is available on new Qantas Red plans – on these plans, the Points offer takes the place of the company’s existing Spotify, Sydney Morning Herald or Stan subscription offer on selected plans (meaning you can’t get the Qantas points and a Spotify Premium subscrption, for example). Business customers who are also members of the Acquire rewards program will earn double points.
Vodafone’s director of sales, Ben McIntosh said:
The opportunity to earn Qantas Points, which can be redeemed on travel, shopping and a host of other exciting offerings, gives consumers another reason to choose Vodafone and rewards our existing customers for their loyalty.
The deal follows Qantas’ exit from the Optus Perks program in 2015, although the Vodafone offering isn’t a comparable deal. Optus offered points to all customers spending over $30 on a mobile phone bill or recharge, while Vodafone’s offering is a single bulk addition of points when you begin a new 2-year contract. Hopefully Vodafone and Qantas will broaden the deal and offer Qantas Points to existing customers in time.
