Talk:Belgium/@comment-30442849-20161107070619

Just spent a week in Belgium visiting relatives there. I found that there seemed to be very few mobile carriers that had retail storefronts. BASE had at least one store in average sized cities. I purchased two BASE pre-paid cards from a store in Gent. I explained to the sales associate that we were leaving Belgium in a couple days and I wanted a plan that would work within the EU for the remainder of our 2 week vacation. One of the two BASE sims stopped working in my iPhone 5 after less than 24 hours. I was unable to reach the BASE support team or speak to a sales associate the next day in a local store due to long queues. The second card worked (within the EU as planned) until the 1GB of data was used up. One thing the associate forgot to tell me was that once we left Belgium I would not be able to top-up my account as BASE has a policy of not accepting any credit cards that are not issued from a Belgium bank. Keep this in mind if you are planning on using your BASE sim outside of Belgium. If you stay in Belgium you can purchase top-up cards at BASE stores (from kiosks) and purhaps local convenience markets. Otherwise you'll need to get extra top-up cards before you leave the country. If I had to do it over again, I'd probably go with ORANGE or LycaMobile as these mobile carrier were present in Great Britian, France, and Italy where we continued out travels and top-up cards were readily available at many shops and mini-markets. Also, I don't see any notes above about either of those two carriers not allowing top-ups with a foreign credit card. I don't know if this is actually the case, but I know that BASE is only available in Belgium and absolutely won't let you top-up with a foreign credit card through the BASE phone App or on their website. Just my recent experience... Next time I plan a trip to the EU, I plan on taking a Google phone and subscribing to Google's international plan. It allows you to roam in many foreign countries and you don't have to worry about finding and purchasing sims or topping them up in every country you travel to. My carrier in the U.S. is Verizon, and their international roaming option is called "Travel Pass", but it's $10 per day, per phone. It allows you to use your own plan minutes and data while overseas, but for a 21 day vacation this can get quite costly. It did come in handy when we stepped off the plane and needed to call our relatives, but I only activated it five time on only one phone during our entire trip. Try to find the best option for you if you are traveling within the EU and be careful when choosing BASE as your mobile carrier, keeping in mind the top-up limitations when outside Belgium. You might what to find a more international carrier.