Lauren's List: How To Avoid Roaming Charges On Cellphones
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Mobile phone users know all too well what it's like to deal with pesky and often expensive roaming charges but how can you reduce the cost while traveling?
Monday's "Lauren's List" is all about getting your smartphone spending under control, particularly when you're on vacation.
The dreaded roaming charges are particularly high for people who travel overseas.
Americans spend billions of dollars trying to stay connected while on vacation, but there are some ways to get that smartphone travel budget in check.
- Verify coverage in the country where you are traveling and select an international package. Check with your provider for an online travel guide that shows the international rates and carrier information for countries around the world.
- Disable email auto-check. Switch your phone's email settings from "push" to "fetch." This way you can manually download your email when connected to Wi-Fi. If not, you'll keep racking up charges every time your phone checks for new emails.
- Avoid streaming. Streaming content is extremely data intensive. You can download content before leaving the U.S. to avoid streaming movies, videos, music or other content while abroad.
- Turn off your cellular data all together. This will be impossible for some, myself included! But you can try to simply switch your phone to "airplane mode" to prevent any background downloads then enable a Wi-Fi connection to freely access the internet using hotspots in your destination.
Let us know how you stay connected on vacation without breaking the bank.
Tell Lauren on Facebook or Twitter and you can always send future "Lauren's List" ideas to lpastrana@cbs.com.
