Fi, eSIM, CDMX, and Me (Premium)

I switched back to Google Fi this year because I’m traveling internationally more often. But I'm probably going to switch again, and for a variety of reasons.

I wrote about my return to Google Fi back in April. Before that, I used Mint Mobile for two years. And before that, I had used Google Fi full-time since September 2017. (I used it on trips prior to that.) Point being, I’ve always really liked Google Fi. Indeed, I’ve liked it since it was called Project Fi.

But my two-year Mint Mobile side-trip was all about money: Google Fi has transparent pricing and incredible international features, both of which I love, but it can be expensive, with a base monthly price of $30 plus another $10 per each additional GB up to a 6 GB spending cap. And with the pandemic starting in March 2020, I figured I could save a lot of money on my wireless bill each month, especially since I wouldn’t be traveling internationally again anytime soon.

And that’s exactly what happened: Mint Mobile cost me $300 per year (so, about $25 per month) over those two years and I never came close to using all the data I was allotted. But things did change again in those two years. First, travel started back up again as the vaccines appeared and the pandemic waned in 2021. Then, international travel slowly kicked in again. I purchased an iPhone 13 Pro in late 2021. And then, in early 2022, we purchased an apartment in Mexico City, which changed how, where, and how often we travel internationally. Dramatically.

You probably know or remember at least some of that. But I bring it up again not because it’s interesting but because it’s all relevant to something I’ve been thinking about again: saving money by getting rid of Google Fi but doing so in a way that works better with the iPhone and won’t hinder my very necessary international cellular phone, text, and data needs. In other words, this time I want to have it all: the convenience of Google Fi combined with the savings I experienced with Mint Mobile. And because so much has changed, I can probably make that happen.

This desire to switch things up has been building all year. I’ve traveled internationally four times this year already, for a total of five and a half weeks away, and we have another two-week trip planned for October. Combine that with our ten-day trip to Seattle/Alaska in July, and that’s a lot of travel for someone who hasn’t been on a work-related trip since November 2019. Put another way, that’s 7.5 weeks so far (and 9+ weeks by the end of October) in which I’ve been using Google Fi quite extensively. And this has resulted in some expensive bills. And some frustrations.

First, the bills. Here are my last five bills because, previous to that, I was still using Mint Mobile and was activating my Fi account only when I was away:

$81.52 (5.5 GB)

$86.71 (6.99 GB)

$44.96 (1.82 GB)

$86.03 (9.24 GB)

$56.71 (1.3 GB)

Looking at those figures, you can see that...