Five things worth checking on a Black Friday eSIM offer, before the percentage

Check 1. What currency is the price in at checkout?

Not on the landing page. At checkout.

Plenty of travel eSIM retailers operate globally and price in US dollars. Some show a converted figure while you browse and charge in USD at the end. An A$-looking number that turns into a USD charge is a materially different price, and your bank may add a foreign transaction fee on top of it.

How to check: put the plan in the cart and go as far as the payment step without paying. Look at the currency code next to the total. If it says USD, the number you saw earlier was an estimate.

This is worth doing before Black Friday, not during, because it is the check most affected by rushing.

Check 2. What does the data allowance mean?

Fixed, daily and unlimited-labelled plans have different limits and should not be compared as though they are one product.

• A total data plan gives you an amount to use across the whole validity period. 5GB over 30 days means 5GB, whenever you use it.
• A daily plan gives you an amount per day, often with reduced speed after that, over a set number of days. 1GB/day for 7 days is a different shape entirely.
• An unlimited-labelled plan may have a speed ceiling, a high-speed allowance or a hotspot limit. Read those terms before treating the word unlimited as a promise of unrestricted full-speed use.

A discount percentage alone tells you nothing about which plan fits. Check the allowance, speed and hotspot terms against your trip. Daily plans suit short trips with heavy use. Total data plans suit longer trips with uneven use, and they are usually the better choice when you are buying months ahead.

How to check: look for the words “per day” in the plan name or the data column. If a plan says unlimited, check its speed, fair-use and hotspot terms as well as its duration.

Check 3. What is the use-by date?

The single most common way a Black Friday eSIM purchase goes wrong.

Every travel eSIM has two clocks. The use-by date is how long you have to start the plan after you buy it. The validity period is how long the plan runs once it has started. The number in the plan name is almost always the validity.

Buy a plan in late November for a trip in July and it does not matter how good the discount was if the use-by ran out in May.

How to check: find the use-by, expiry or “activate by” period on the plan page and count forward from the day you would buy. If it is not on the page, a quick email before you spend anything will settle it. We have written the whole thing up in how far ahead to buy a travel eSIM.

Check 4. Is the percentage against a price that stood before the sale?

A discount is a claim about a price that existed previously. That makes it checkable, and the check takes ten minutes if you do it in advance.

How to check: in early November, write down the price of the two or three plans you are considering. Then look again during the sale. You now know what the percentage is actually against, rather than what it says it is against.

The ACCC treats was-and-now pricing as an enforcement priority precisely because the “was” is the part nobody can verify at the moment of purchase. You can verify it. You just have to do it a fortnight early.

A related thing worth noticing: a page can state a discount without showing a comparison price at all. That is a deliberate choice on our own sale, and it means you have to do this check on us too.

Check 5. What happens if you never use it?

Ask this before you buy anything for a trip that is not booked and paid for.

Buying months ahead is the entire premise of a November sale on a product used in April. The offer only makes sense if you know your position when the trip moves, shortens, or does not happen.

How to check: find the refund policy and look for three specific words: installed, activated, used. A policy that only says “unactivated” is not precise enough, because a profile can be installed on a phone and never used, and those are different states with different answers.

Then look for the window. Thirty days after purchase is a common one. If your trip is five months away, a 30-day window does not help you.

If the answer is not written down anywhere on the site, treat that as the answer.

The five checks, in one table

Our own answers to the five

This is the pitch, and it is the last section for a reason. You now have the criteria, so you can check every line of it.

1. Currency. We price and charge in Australian dollars. Prices are in Australian dollars and the checkout total is the amount charged by The SIM Shop.
2. Total data or daily. We sell fixed, daily and unlimited-labelled plans. Fixed-data plans are named by their total, daily plans are named GB/day, and unlimited plan terms state any speed or high-speed limits.
3. Use-by. Many plans give you 180 days to start; others, including the new unlimited range, give you 60. Read the selected plan’s use-by before buying for a future trip. Our buying-ahead guide explains why the active duration is a separate number.
4. Pre-sale price. Our Black Friday pages show the price you pay and the offer that applies to that plan, which is 10%, 15%, 20%, 25% or 30% off, or a free data upgrade. We show no strike-through, so the way to verify our discount is to note our prices a fortnight out and compare them during the sale. That is the same check we are suggesting you run on everyone else, and we would rather you ran it on us too.
5. If you never use it. A Black Friday eSIM that remains uninstalled, unactivated and unused can be returned under our voluntary change-of-mind promise within 12 months of purchase. It does not extend the plan’s use-by period, and it sits on top of your Australian Consumer Law rights rather than replacing them. That is our answer to check five, and it is why we wrote check five.

The details of our own sale are on the Black Friday page, and whether waiting for it is a good idea for you is a separate question we have answered here.

If you are ready to look at plans, our full destination list shows the current sizes and validity periods.

Questions people actually ask

Are Black Friday eSIM deals worth it?

Sometimes. It depends on the price under the percentage and whether the plan’s use-by date reaches your trip. The five checks above are how you tell.

How do I compare travel eSIM deals fairly?

Compare the same shape of plan for the same destination over the same validity, in the same currency, then check the use-by. Comparing fixed, daily and unlimited-labelled plans on price alone misses their different speed and hotspot terms.

What is a normal Black Friday discount on a travel eSIM?

Discounts in the category are usually in the tens of per cent during late November. The size of the percentage says less about the outcome than the price it is applied to. Some retailers, us included, run more than one discount depth across a catalogue, so check the plan you want rather than the headline.

Why do some retailers not show a strike-through price?

Some choose not to make a comparison-price claim. It is a legitimate choice, and it does mean the only way to verify the discount is to note prices before the sale.

What does use-by mean on an eSIM?

How long you have to start the plan after buying it, as distinct from how long the plan runs once started.

Can I get a refund on an unused travel eSIM?

It depends on the retailer and on whether the profile was installed. Look for a policy that treats installed, activated and used as three separate states.

Should I buy in USD if it looks cheaper?

Convert it properly and add your card’s foreign transaction fee before deciding. The headline number and the amount that leaves your account are often not the same.

Is a bigger plan for free better than a discount?

Only if you would have used the extra data. Otherwise the discount on the smaller plan is worth more to you.

Sources

The ACCC’s position on was-and-now and comparison pricing, and on consumer guarantees and change-of-mind policies, from repair, replace, refund, cancel and the ACCC’s published compliance and enforcement priorities. The SIM Shop’s own currency, plan-type labelling, use-by periods and refund position from our plan pages, refund policy and Black Friday terms, checked 14 September 2026. No other retailer’s pricing, discount or policy is asserted on this page; check any retailer’s terms on their own pages, on the day you buy.

Written by Lachlan, who runs The SIM Shop from Brisbane and answers the support email himself.