Holiday rule changes: Briton hit by £192,000 phone bill after four days in Turkey

John Nisill was left shocked when BT claimed he had used 43GB of data during his holiday. He claimed he answered a few emails and made 16 minutes of calls while on his break to Marmaris in October. He said: “My boss called and said you’re going to have to switch off the phone.

“The bill seems a little high.

“I said ‘What is it?’ He said £100,000.

“Next day he phoned back and said, ‘Definitely switch it off, it’s now £192,000’.”

According to The Sun, BT said they will waive the bill following an investigation.

A spokesperson said: “We understand this is a very significant bill to receive, so, on this occasion, we are waiving the surplus roaming charges.

“In this case, the customer was on a BT Business mobile plan which included a monthly data allowance of 250MB.

“When travelling in Turkey he far exceeded his agreed limit by consuming 46GB of data.

“We alerted him several times that he had exceeded his data allowances, that standard roaming charges were in place and that he was incurring high usage.

READ MORE: Brexit news: Why roaming charges now don’t apply to some users

For BT customers, customers can purchase a Travel Data Pass and receive 500MB of data for £6 a day.

Every 24 hours, the 500MB allowance would automatically be renewed and will turn itself off when a customer leaves one of the 12 countries outlined.

The Travel Data Pass is valid in Andorra, Australia, Canada, China, India, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, UAE, and the USA.

Since 2017, British holidaymakers have benefited from the EU’s “roam like at home” rules.

This meant holidaymakers could use their phone data without incurring any extra charges in all 27 EU countries.

However, following Britain’s departure from the EU two of the UK’s four biggest networks, EE and Vodafone, announced they would be reintroducing roaming charges for customers.

Three is set to reintroduce these charges in May but O2 and Virgin Mobile said they would maintain their inclusive roaming in the bloc.

O2 and Virgin Mobile customers can travel and use their data, calls and texts just as they would in the UK.

Virgin Media O2’s Gareth Turpin said: “We’re starting the year by giving our customers some certainty: we will not be reintroducing roaming fees in Europe for customers on O2 or Virgin Mobile.

“Unlike all the other major mobile networks who are bringing back roaming fees, we will not be following suit.

“With many Brits now looking to plan a trip abroad, we’ve got our customers covered and extra roaming charges will be one less thing to worry about.”