Vodafone (NASDAQ:VOD) Offers Free Roaming To New Zealand

Vodafone Group Plc (NASDAQ:VOD) has decided to give free roaming to its customers in New Zealand for the next year. The company would also ally with Australian airline Qantas for frequent flyer points as well as other traveller offerings.

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Vodafone’s Red Postpaid plans charge AU$5 a day roaming to 52 countries, and allows its customers to utilize their regular monthly allowances globally. It has been offering this service since 2013 to Australian travellers in New Zealand.

In a bid to attract more customers, Vodafone will waive off its normal AU$5 a day fee for customers to use their monthly data calls and text messages in New Zealand as part of a trial till February of next year.

Loo Fun Chee, Vodafone Australia CMO, said the company will look at adding other countries to its free-roaming list next year. He added the reason for doing the trial is to better comprehend customer reaction and how they use the service.

With Vodafone being the world’s second largest mobile network it could theoretically offer free roaming to all countries in which it has active networks. Vodafone will give 15,000 Qantas frequent flyer points to its customers when they start, renew or upgrade their two-year Red plan.

Qantas also will be providing prepaid phones and SIMS on certain international flights flying into Australia. The SIM will cost travellers AU$40 and comes with 4GB of data, unlimited number of calls as well as messaging to numbers in Australia, unlimited free international calls to Thailand, India, South Korea, Malaysia, the UK, Hong Kong, Singapore, the US, China, and New Zealand as well as 90 minutes of international calls to other nations.

Vodafone may also rope in Britain and Canada to its free-roaming offering in the coming days.

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