Before you rely on a $5 day pass, check your plan is actually eligible

Why this article exists

The daily roaming deals the big three advertise are good. Optus gives you 5GB a day for $5. Telstra gives you 2GB a day and unlimited calls for $5 or $10 depending on where you are going. Vodafone lets you use your own plan for $5 a day.

The advertising does not mention that each of them excludes a substantial number of their own customers. Not obscure legacy plans nobody is on. Ordinary plans, including some the same carrier is selling right now.

The worst place to discover this is the arrivals hall. It takes about five minutes to check before you go, and this is how.

If you are at the point of choosing a plan, our best travel eSIM guide for Australians compares the current options and their practical trade-offs.

The single rule that catches almost everyone

Every one of the three big carriers reserves its good roaming product for postpaid.

If you are on prepaid with Telstra, Optus or Vodafone, you cannot buy the Day Pass, you cannot get Optus Daily Roaming, and you cannot use $5 Roaming. You get a separate, narrower product with fewer destinations and less data. In Telstra’s case that is 38 destinations against 91 for postpaid. In Optus’s case the prepaid list runs to 125 destinations while the postpaid list runs to 153.

Roughly a third of Australian mobile services are prepaid. If that is you, the daily roaming advertising you have been seeing is not for you, and no amount of setting things up before you fly will change that.

Telstra

The product: International Day Pass. $5 a day in Zone 1 with 2GB, $10 a day in Zone 2 with 2GB, $10 a day in Zone 3 with no data at all.

Postpaid only. From Telstra’s Critical Information Summary:

“The International Roaming Day Pass is available to you as a Telstra Consumer or Small Business Post-Paid Mobile customer.”

Postpaid is not enough on its own. Telstra excludes about eighteen named plans, verbatim from the same document:

“The International Roaming Day Pass is not available for any services on the following plans: Mobile plan $129, Mobile Lease plan $129, Mobile BYO $89, Ultimate Mobile plan $199, Ultimate Mobile Lease plan $199, Go Mobile Plus (or Swap) Plans $129 or above, My Business Mobile (or Lease) Plans $129 or above, Premium Mobile Plus, Premium Mobile Plan, Premium Swap Plan, My Business Premium Lease Plan, My Business Premium Mobile Plan, Business Premium Mobile Plan, Corporate Mobile Plus, Enterprise Fleet Plan, Business Fleet Plus, Business Fleet Connect, and any other plans or offers that include an International Roaming allowance.”

Note the pattern. It is the expensive plans that are excluded, because they already bundle a roaming allowance of their own. If you are on a $129 or $199 Telstra plan, check what your bundled allowance actually is rather than assuming you can buy a Day Pass on top.

Zone 3 is Upfront plans only, and it gives you no data. Four destinations: Jamaica, Gibraltar, Guernsey and Jersey.

One more that is worth knowing. On Upfront plans you cannot elect pay as you go rates at all. From Telstra’s roaming page: “If you’re on an Upfront plan, to connect without Day Pass overseas, you’ll need to use local Wi-Fi.” It is Day Pass or wifi, with nothing in between.

Prepaid gets Travel Packs instead: $10 for 400MB over three days, $15 for 2GB over seven days, or $25 for 4GB over fourteen days, across 38 destinations. Telstra advises buying them after you arrive, because they activate the moment you buy.

Full detail in Telstra International Day Pass vs a travel eSIM.

Optus

The product: Optus Daily Roaming. $5 per 24 hours for 5GB plus unlimited standard talk and text, across more than 150 Zone 1 destinations. On value this is the strongest of the three and we are happy to say so.

Postpaid only, and only on named plans. From Optus’s own explainer:

“Optus Daily Roaming is available to Consumer and Small Business customers on an eligible Optus Choice Plus, Optus Plus Family, Optus Plus Promo, Optus Plus Data, Business Choice Plus, Business Choice Data Plus, Business Teams Plus and Qantas plans (Mobile Phone & Mobile Broadband).”

Optus’s own eligible plans PDF lists the same set with two differences worth noting: it names the data plan Optus Choice Plus Data rather than “Optus Plus Data”, and it adds Optus Plus Kids at $29. That PDF is dated May 2023, so the plan prices in it may have moved even though Optus still links to it as the current list.

If you are on any other Optus postpaid plan, you are not out of luck but you are on a different product. Older consumer plans get the $10 Optus Roaming Pass, which is 1GB per 24 hours. Business customers on the non Plus range get the Optus Business $5 Roaming Pass, which works the same way as Daily Roaming.

The exclusion nobody expects is geographic, not contractual. If your destination is not on the Zone 1 list, a Choice Plus customer does not get expensive roaming. They get none:

“What if the country I am visiting is not listed in the eligible Zone 1 destinations list? Unfortunately, if you’re traveling to a Zone 2 destination, you won’t be able to use roaming on your service. Using WiFi is recommended whilst in other destinations.”

The Zone 1 list covers 153 destinations and includes everywhere Australians commonly go, so this will rarely bite. Check it if your trip is off the usual track.

Prepaid gets add-ons instead: $5 for 1GB over a day, $25 for 5GB over fourteen days, $45 for 10GB over 28 days, or $75 for 15GB over 186 days, Zone 1 only.

Full detail in how Optus daily roaming switches itself on.

Vodafone

The product: $5 Roaming. Unlike the other two, this does not give you a data allowance. It gives you permission to use the data already on your plan.

Vodafone has the longest exclusion list of the three, and most of it is not on the marketing pages.

Excluded plan families, from the January 2026 roaming terms:

“Vodafone Consumer Postpaid Mobile plan launched since January 2023 (unless otherwise advised), excluding Holding Plans, Holding Plan 200MB, Assured Plans, Stay Connected Plans, Red Cap Plans, Relief MTM Plans.”

Excluded by signup date, from Vodafone’s roaming FAQ:

“You won’t be able to access $5 Roaming if you: signed up to a Red or SIM Only Modem plan after 2 July 2020 / signed up to an eligible Mobile Broadband plan between 31 August 2016 and 12 April 2017”

Business Flex Mobile Broadband month to month and 24 month SIM only plans are also out.

And the one that affects the most people, which is not a plan exclusion at all. Many Vodafone plans are sold as a chunk of full speed data followed by unlimited data at a capped speed. That capped portion is unavailable overseas:

“You can only use Included Data allowance while $5 Roaming, not the remaining data which is capped at speeds up to 1.5Mbps, 2Mbps,10Mbps or 25Mbps depending on your chosen plan while in Australia.”

So a plan advertised as 50GB then unlimited at 2Mbps is a 50GB plan when you travel. Work out your real full speed number before you decide $5 a day covers you.

Two more conditions most people will not have read. $5 Roaming is limited to 90 days per calendar year per service, after which you are automatically moved to pay as you go at $1 per MB. And it is available to Australian Permanent Residents only.

Prepaid gets add-ons: $5 for 1GB over a day, $15 for 3GB over three days, or $35 for 7GB over seven days, across 80 destinations, handsets only.

Full detail in Vodafone $5 Roaming vs a travel eSIM.

The five minute check

Do this before you book anything, not the night before you fly.

1. Confirm postpaid or prepaid. If prepaid, you are on the narrower product regardless of carrier. Skip to the destination check.
2. Find your exact plan name. Not “the $59 one”. The actual name, from your bill or your account app. Telstra and Optus both exclude and include by plan name, and the names are similar enough to be misleading.
3. Check your plan against the exclusion lists above. Telstra excludes eighteen named plans. Optus works the other way and lists only the plans that qualify. Vodafone excludes six plan families plus two signup date windows.
4. On Vodafone, find your full speed allowance. Ignore anything described as unlimited at a capped speed. That number is your real overseas allowance.
5. Check your destination is in the right zone. Telstra has three zones and Zone 2 costs double Zone 1. Optus gives Choice Plus customers nothing outside Zone 1. Vodafone covers “over 100” destinations and publishes two lists with different counts.
6. Check the toggle. All three switch roaming on by default on eligible plans, and all three still tell you to verify it in the app before you fly. Telstra says the Day Pass can take up to two hours to activate.

What to do if the answer is no

You have four options and they are not equal.

Pay as you go. Do not. Telstra charges $3 per MB, Optus and Vodafone charge $1 per MB on postpaid, and Vodafone prepaid charges $51.20 per MB. One gigabyte at $1 per MB is over a thousand dollars.

Switch plans before you go. Reasonable if you were due to change anyway, and genuinely the cheapest answer if you travel often. Not worth restructuring your life over one holiday.

An MVNO roaming pack. Felix, Belong, Tangerine, More, Kogan, amaysim and Boost all sell roaming packs, and they vary enormously. Boost is unusually permissive about eligibility and runs on Telstra’s full network. amaysim’s packs last 365 days. We have compared them in every Australian MVNO roaming pack.

A travel eSIM. Which is what we sell, so treat this paragraph accordingly. It is data only, it needs a compatible unlocked phone, and you install it after you land on airport wifi. What it does is put the price in front of you before you leave and keep it there. Our destination pages have the plans in Australian dollars.

You can also run a travel eSIM alongside your Australian line so your own number keeps receiving bank codes and two factor texts. All three carriers confirm that receiving a text does not trigger a roaming charge, which is the detail that makes the setup work. Keeping your Australian number covers it.

The honest summary

If you are on an eligible postpaid plan with a decent allowance and your trip is short, the daily roaming products are good and you should use them. Optus in particular is very hard to beat at $5 for 5GB.

The reason to check is that “eligible postpaid plan” is doing a lot of work in that sentence, and none of the three carriers puts the exclusions anywhere near the advertising.

Questions people actually ask

Can I get the Telstra Day Pass on prepaid?

No. Telstra reserves it for postpaid. Prepaid customers buy Travel Packs covering 38 destinations, starting at $10 for 400MB over three days.

Why can’t I use all my Vodafone data overseas?

Because data capped at 1.5Mbps, 2Mbps, 10Mbps or 25Mbps is excluded from $5 Roaming. Only your full speed included allowance is available.

Which Optus plans get Daily Roaming?

Optus Choice Plus, Optus Plus Family, Optus Plus Promo, Optus Choice Plus Data, Optus Plus Kids, Business Choice Plus, Business Choice Data Plus, Business Teams Plus and Qantas plans. Other postpaid plans get the $10 Roaming Pass or standard rates instead.

I’m on an expensive Telstra plan. Why am I excluded from the Day Pass?

Because those plans already include a roaming allowance of their own. Telstra excludes any plan “that include an International Roaming allowance”. Check what yours actually includes before you travel.

What happens if I go over 90 days of roaming with Vodafone?

You are automatically charged pay as you go rates of $1 per MB. The service keeps working, it just costs two hundred times more per megabyte.

Do I need to turn roaming on before I fly?

On eligible plans all three carriers enable it by default, but all three also tell you to check the setting in their app. Telstra notes the Day Pass can take up to two hours to activate, so do it before you leave rather than at the gate.

What if my destination isn’t covered?

On Optus Choice Plus you cannot roam at all outside Zone 1. On Telstra and Vodafone you fall back to pay as you go, which is $3 per MB and $1 per MB respectively. A travel eSIM or local wifi are the realistic alternatives.

Is a travel eSIM affected by any of this?

No. It runs on its own plan, bought separately, so carrier eligibility does not apply. It needs a compatible unlocked phone, and it is data only.

Sources

All eligibility rules, exclusions and quotes retrieved 17 August 2026 from carrier owned sources. Telstra: International Roaming, Day Pass Critical Information Summary, Our Customer Terms Part I, Prepaid International Roaming. Optus: Daily Roaming explained, International Roaming, eligible plans PDF, Prepaid International Roaming. Vodafone: International Roaming, roaming terms January 2026, postpaid terms July 2026, Prepaid Roaming Add-ons.

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