Every month you get 30 gigabytes of high-speed data and then unlimited data at 1 megabit per second, which is fast enough for browsing the web but not really for streaming Netflix or Spotify.
Every eSIM brand offers data to use abroad. What makes Saily really stand out is its lounge and access perks. I used the eSim to gain entry into the Air Canada lounge at San Francisco Airport, even though I wasn’t flying with Air Canada. Saily Ultra offers one airport lounge pass per month at more than 100 lounges globally, which is a truly great perk if you’re not flying business class or don’t have sufficient frequent flyer status. I didn’t need to scan my boarding pass; instead, Saily generated a QR code that gained me lounge access.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to try the touted ability to ‘skip the lines at the airport’, given San Francisco and Melbourne aren’t supported airports. There are about 120 ‘fast-track airports’, with more to come.
There are a couple of drawbacks: Saily Ultra doesn’t come with any phone number or voice calls, and its data speeds seemed a tad slower overall than its rivals. Still, for the combination of travel data and real-life perks like lounge access, Saily is unique and hard to beat. It feels like first class for your phone.
SimCorner
Unlike most of its rivals, SimCorner is fully Australian-owned and -operated, and has racked up more than 1 million customers across its range, which is available as either physical SIMs or eSIMs. The company has a 4.8-star customer rating and it’s easy to see why.
Download speeds with SimCorner were lightning fast, often topping 300 Megabits per second in downtown San Francisco.Credit: David Swan.
I trialled SimCorner’s US eSIM that gave me unlimited high-speed data on the T-Mobile network, which costs $67 for 30 days. Download speeds were lightning fast, often topping 300 megabits per second in downtown San Francisco, which is just fast as my NBN connection back home. And, in a crucial point of difference, the eSIM included a phone number and unlimited calls to US numbers.
This came in handy when I needed to make (or, in a couple of cases, cancel) restaurant bookings, or give a US phone number to sign up to supermarket and pharmacy reward programs, which saved me a few bucks (and which I’ll never use again). My United flights also offered free Wi-Fi for T-Mobile customers, so that also saved me about $US20. In a mildly amusing and frustrating turn of events, I did get a bunch of texts and calls from people who thought I was someone named Phoenix. These phone numbers obviously get recycled often.
Other than a few awkward texts, in which I said, ‘I don’t know who Phoenix is’, everything worked great. For overall value, speed and reliability, SimCorner is one of the best.
Simify
Simify – formerly SimsDirect – was founded in 2018 by two young Australian entrepreneurs, Mac Steer and Aidan Butler, who were frustrated at paying too much for roaming packages offered by the major telecommunication companies. This was back in the days in which headlines were common of customers receiving “bill shock” and surprise roaming charges of hundreds of dollars.
An eSIM lets you change providers without inserting a new SIM card.Credit: Getty Images
Simify offers mobile coverage across more than 150 countries and has a rather unique business model compared with some of the other options. You pay for how long your trip is, rather than how much data you think you’ll use. Unlimited data in South-East Asia for seven days costs $25 – about the price of a movie ticket – while a ‘global’ option with unlimited data is $129 for 30 days.
Simify is easy to set up and is a strong option for regional plans, like if you’re hopping around a few different countries. It’s beaten by its rivals in a couple of aspects: unlike Saily or Airalo there’s no app, and its pricing does overall tend to be a bit higher than the others.
The bottom line is that, in most cases, travel eSIMs are a far superior option to roaming with Telstra, TPG or Optus. They’re no longer a hack – they’re the passport to smoother, smarter and far more connected adventures.
Other options to consider: Airalo, Holafly, Sim Local.
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