How to save costs while roaming

Christmas is just around the corner and for some that means flying off to visit family and friends, or just getting away from the seasonal madness.

The only problem is, sometimes roaming charges can cost more than the flights themselves when they add up, so here are a few of the best roaming plans to keep your costs down when you're abroad.

Three Feel At Home

Three has re-jigged its roaming plans in the last week, adding a number of countries to its Feel At Home incentive. This lets you behave exactly as you would in the UK, for no extra cost.

While the incentive won't be available in all the countries you have on your holiday wish list, it covers a fair few, allowing you to use your inclusive minutes, texts and data in certain destinations. If you go over your allowances, you will be charged a lower roaming rate than normal.

The incentive already includes Republic of Ireland, Australia, Italy, Austria, Hong Kong, Sweden and Denmark, with the carrier also adding the USA, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Macau this week. It's the only network to offer such a great deal beyond Europe - crucial for the otherwise-ruinous prospect of getting online in the US or Asia.

Vodafone EuroTraveller

If you are taking a trip somewhere inside the EU and you have a Vodafone contract, you can pay £3 a day for EuroTraveller and you'll be able to use your UK price plan.

The day runs from midnight to 11.59pm local time but you'll only be charged on the days you use your phone so it's worth trying to do all your emails and texts on a couple of days rather than every day to save being charged £3 every day.

There are a couple of countries excluded such as Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine, along with a couple of others, but for most countries, you will be able to use your minutes, texts and data as you normally do in the UK. You can check the full list of countries here.

O2 Travel

The O2 Travel bolt on works in a similar way to Vodafone EuroTraveller, only charging you on the days you use it between midnight and 11.59pm.

Slightly cheaper than EuroTraveller, the O2 Travel bolt-on will cost you £1.99 a day for 15MB of mobile data - enough for the basics - and then 50p per call connection fee. Once you have paid the connection fee, you can talk for up to 60 mins per call.

Just like Vodafone there are a few exclusions so check before you get on the flight here.

Orange Europe Traveller

Available to Orange contract customers, the Europe Traveller will cost you £5.10 a month and you'll get 200 mins of reduced price calls.

Rather than paying 24.5p per minute, you'll pay 18.3p per minute and you'll also get 200 minutes of received calls for free, but no data is included in the bundle.

Orange has also just introduced Mobicarte Holiday, allowing you to pre-pay for calls, text and data before you've packed your bags.

For €40 you'll get 120 minutes of calls, 1000 international texts and 1GB of data, with the same available again for €30 if you run out.

A bundle lasts for 14 days so it should keep you covered unless you plan on being away for a longer period of time. The only catch is that is that it's currently only available in France but fingers crossed it will be coming to other countries soon.

There is also the option to buy a local SIM card for the country you are going to. This will give you a new number for the country you're in, saving you having to pay roaming charges for calls you make locally.

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