(Post 259 of 263)

I love that I can use my TelCel pay-as-you-go Amigo plan in Canada and the US the same as I can in Mexico. There has however been one huge modification since the last time I used my TelCel plan in Canada.

Your Amigo top-up gives you so much bandwidth per month. If you don’t use it all, it rolls over and accumulates. Last time I was in Canada, I was able to draw down on this accumulated bandwidth in addition to whatever amount I’d had received with my last top-up.

I got to Canada with a ton of bandwidth on my account, but imagine my shock when I walked into my hotel room in Regina only to receive a message that I’d used up all my allowed bandwidth for my time abroad. Oops!

But, of course, this is TelCel, not a Canadian telco, so they aren’t monsters. They were just fine with my topping up to buy another plan. I did this a couple of times on my trip. Sum total, I spent about an extra 800 pesos to have cell service on my trip, about 60CAD. I didn’t waste a lot of time looking at plan options with Canadian telcos, but the one I did look at was about $60 for a month, plus you had to buy a SIM card, plus it wasn’t nearly as good value since you don’t get unlimited free socials. To be honest, this just wasn’t a big deal to me. I could have been more careful with my bandwidth usage, but I’m used to never having to worry about internet access now, so a couple of affordable top-ups weren’t going to ruin my trip.

My only complaint about this new change is if TelCel can still allow Facebook and Instagram to run when you run out of bandwidth, they should be able to make MiTelCel available also to make it easier to top up when you’re not near a place where you can do so in person. I’ve had it happen a few times when I was home that my top-up didn’t “take” for some reason and I was stranded across town with no cell service, but I could at least pop into an Oxxo. In Canada, I had to wait until I could find some wifi. Really not a big deal at all — I never once found myself without internet access when I needed it, including using the “Waze” app for the first time to navigate to my friends’ home in Ontario.

I did think before I left home that I should add some money to my account to make it possible to top up using the *133# option, but knew that if I had money on my account, TelCel would most likely charge me piecemeal for my bandwidth until I ran out of money rather than advising me I needed to top up. So it was more economical to top up as needed than to leave a large balance on my account for them to draw on.

I remain so grateful to TelCel for making it possible to return to Canada and not have to deal with the telcos there!