Rogers expands Roam Like Home, increases price to $7 per day in U.S. and retires travel packs

Rogers has announced that as of today, May 2nd, it is eliminating travel packs for international roaming in favour of focusing primarily on its daily roaming service, Roam Like Home.

Fido, the carrier’s sub-brand for postpaid wireless service, is following suit with its parent company. The flanker brand is also opening its Fido Roam program to all postpaid customers for the first time.

Additionally, Rogers has announced that it is expanding the service to several new countries and increasing the price of Roam Like Home and Fido Roam by $1 CAD from $6 to $7 per day — in line with competitors Bell and Telus.

“Our customers love Roam Like Home and Fido Roam, and are using their services more than ever while travelling abroad,” Rogers wrote in a statement emailed to MobileSyrup.

“With the expansion to even more destinations and customers, the services continue to offer great value with the ease, convenience and predictability customers expect.”

Roam Like Home and Fido Roam let customers use the same allotments of data, calling and texts in international locations as they do at home for a daily rate — $7 in the U.S. and $12 in other international locations.

Roam Like Home was the first daily roaming program to launch at a national carrier in Canada, arriving in 2014 under former CEO Guy Laurence. Telus and Bell launched its equivalent of the service in 2015.

Previous to the launch of roaming programs, travel packs were the necessary add-on for those desiring to roam with their carrier in an international location.

Before the change, Rogers’ European talk, text and data travel packs started at $60 per 31 days for 40 minutes of calling, 150 sent texts (unlimited received) and 40MB of data — an option that only really worked for emergencies.

Meanwhile, Roam Like Home caps its daily fees at 15 days’ charge per billing cycle, making one month of roaming service no more than $105 in the U.S. or $180 in other international locations — excluding overages.

Comparatively, Telus caps at $100 per billing cycle in the U.S. and $150 in other international locations. Bell caps at $140 for the U.S. and $240 for other international locations.

In explaining the impetus behind the travel pack retirement, the national telecom reported that over 90 percent of Rogers and Fido customers’ roaming usage happens in destinations where Roam Like Home and Fido Roam are available.

For those countries where Roam Like Home is not available, Rogers noted that pay-per-use rates are now the only substitute.

The new countries added to Roam Like Home and Fido Roam include Belize, Indonesia, Macau, Macedonia, Malaysia, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Thailand, United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.

The service is now available in over 125 destinations total and Rogers noted that it hopes to continue its expansion into new countries in the future.