Keep UK sim switched on or not

[petermik]

Gents I am in the habit of turning off my UK sim while living here in LOS and only turning it on to receive Banking OTPs or topping it up....is this a good practice or am I better off leaving it activated permanently....

[DFPhuket]

The key is to make certain roaming is turned off.

 

I have dual SIMs (Thai eSIM and physical US SIM) and generally leave both turned on. Like you, I get OTPs for banks, etc. and I find that's easier. I'm not charged for incoming text messages and in the odd case that I get a (spam) voice call, I just decline to answer it. With roaming off there are no extra charges for leaving the SIM on. I assume this is the same for UK SIMs. 

[KannikaP]

Also make sure that Voice Messaging is turned off. With O2 I got charged £2 a throw for simply clicking on the listen button even though there was no message.

[Doctor Tom]

Not sure what you mean by 'switching off your sim'.  My UK phone is on 24/7 but roaming is off, so I do not incur charges.  I use it for online banking which works on WIFI or 4g without roaming, 4G calls incur charges. 

[The Fugitive]

19 minutes ago, DFPhuket said:

I assume this is the same for UK SIMs. 

Correct, no charge to receive SMS anywhere, need to turn off mobile data and don't answer voice calls. However, I find that the vast majority of SMS and voice calls (that I do recognise and want to answer) come from UK. Therefore, I need unrestricted service with no cost to receive either. A virtual UK mobile 'phone number suits me. I buy a UK SIM with unlimited calls, SMS and data for £16 GBP per month when in UK. Therefore, I only need one SIM (Thai) which is used for receiving OTP's from Thai banks. When in UK enable roaming, turn off mobile data and don't answer voice calls.

[MRToMRT]

Question, how do you do this, do you have dual sim phones?

[The Fugitive]

25 minutes ago, MRToMRT said:

Question, how do you do this, do you have dual sim phones?

When in UK I have to use a dual SIM phone because I have no telephone land line anymore (or cable service) to provide WiFi. One slot used for the UK SIM providing unlimited calls, SMS and data and the other for the Thai SIM for OTP's only. 

[petermik]

2 hours ago, Doctor Tom said:

Not sure what you mean by 'switching off your sim'.  My UK phone is on 24/7 but roaming is off, so I do not incur charges.  I use it for online banking which works on WIFI or 4g without roaming, 4G calls incur charges. 

In a dual sim phone you have the option to turn off/on any sim card (deactivate)....currently my UK sim is turned off excepting for when I,m expecting a OTP from my Banks or I need to top up my account....my question is is it better to leave it permanently on or not...battery saving perhaps...I don,t know?

[scubascuba3]

39 minutes ago, petermik said:

In a dual sim phone you have the option to turn off/on any sim card (deactivate)....currently my UK sim is turned off excepting for when I,m expecting a OTP from my Banks or I need to top up my account....my question is is it better to leave it permanently on or not...battery saving perhaps...I don,t know?

Better to keep turned on always, i keep my UK sim in my tablet which never leaves the home, data off.

 

I want to know if I'm getting calls or messages from other people so not just OTPs 

[Doctor Tom]

1 hour ago, petermik said:

In a dual sim phone you have the option to turn off/on any sim card (deactivate)....currently my UK sim is turned off excepting for when I,m expecting a OTP from my Banks or I need to top up my account....my question is is it better to leave it permanently on or not...battery saving perhaps...I don,t know?

Okay.  If switched off and your bank needs to contact you, say for a fraud /scam warning, how do they do that if its off? I personally would be uncomfortable to be that out of touch. I see no reason to have it switched off.  

[Photoguy21]

Select for your UK what calls, if any, you want to receive on you UK SIM and add the rest to your local Thai SIM

[treetops]

I've recently started turning mine off as it seemed to be "leaking" data even though my Thai SIM was selected as the data SIM.  A phone call to O2 got me a credit for the leakage but in order to stop it happening again I leave it off, and every day or two I disable mobile data, turn the SIM on and it lets me know any calls I've missed and downloads any SMSs.  Once done I turn the SIM off again, enable data and I'm good again for a day or two.

[The Fugitive]

17 minutes ago, treetops said:

I've recently started turning mine off as it seemed to be "leaking" data even though my Thai SIM was selected as the data SIM.  A phone call to O2 got me a credit for the leakage but in order to stop it happening again I leave it off, and every day or two I disable mobile data, turn the SIM on and it lets me know any calls I've missed and downloads any SMSs.  Once done I turn the SIM off again, enable data and I'm good again for a day or two.

Good tip! Many thanks.