Traveling in Japan; using local eSIMs for both of our phones to avoid paying $18/day to AT&T for international day pass.
Twice so far, unplanned phone calls have been placed, and today my message to my an android phone was sent as SMS instead of RCS, incurring another $12 fee for a single message.
For now I’ve given up and disabled my US line entirely, which means 2FA codes for things like Ring, and, ironically, AT&T, don’t work.
So, while using local data means I should be paying $50 for data on a 16 day trip instead of $280, so far I’m at least $36 deep in roaming charges with 2 weeks to go.
There’s gotta be a better way- I wish I could disable send but not receive on my US line. Sad that I thought Apple finally enabling RCS would solve many problems until I realized how fragmented RCS adoption is among Android users.

On previous trips I’ve just paid the insane roaming charges because it’s easier than struggling with iMessage deactivation (largely fixed in recent years), buying physical SIMs in each and every country (sometimes virtually impossible for non-residents), and using global data plans (insufferably slow due to routing through distant countries). Still trying to find the right path.
#askatp #Travel #rcs #imessage #apple #att #ubigi #roaming #internationaldata #android #ios18