How to use your U.S. Verizon phone in Canada (for those of you going to the AAR in Montreal this week)
For those of you Yanquis going to the American Academy of Religion in Montreal this week, you may have suddenly realized that along with digging up your passport and/or birth certificate and trying to budget for those mysterious foreign-currency transaction fees on your credit card, you will also not be able to use your wireless phone while abroad. Well, if you're a Verizon Wireless customer, like me, you're in luck, sort of. As you probably know, Verizon lets you change your calling plan without penalty once per billing cycle. It also turns out -- it took me a while to find this information -- that Verizon offers a "Nationwide Plus Canada" plan for personal accounts. My wife and I share an account and have been using their "Nationwide FamilyShare" plan for a long time. I just phoned customer service (800-922-0204) and the nice man with a southern accent sold me the equivalent plan with Canada coverage included for only twenty extra dollars per month. I think that's the only charge I'm actually going to have to pay, as long as I don't go over my monthly minute allotment. Also, they prorate the charge based on how many days you have left in your billing cycle. Not a bad deal. The whole process lasted 12 minutes, including being on hold. Not all phones -- the actual, physical handsets -- will actually work with Canadian mobile networks, but I think most of them will these days. Oh, and of course it goes without saying that I'm going to switch back to my old plan as soon as the next billing cycle starts.
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