Three to allow free roaming in a further 24 countries

The scheme works by letting you use your standard call, text and data package while abroad at no extra charge, so if you have a monthly allowance, your data use plus texts and calls to the UK are simply deducted from that.

And if you go over your allowance in a participating country, you'll be charged special lower roaming rates – though these still vary according to the country you're in (see Three's roaming tool for a full list).

For full help on how Feel At Home works, see our Cheap Mobile and Data Roaming guide.

Three says the 24 countries and territories will join the Feel At Home scheme some time in September, but it hasn't yet given a precise date, so a total of 42 countries and territories will be covered.

Three's announcement comes ahead of an EU-wide ban on roaming charges, which starts on 15 June 2017. This means that every UK mobile user will pay exactly the same to talk, text or surf the web on their handset in the EU as they do at home in the UK, though it's not clear how this might change after the UK exits the EU (and not all the countries covered by Feel at Home are in the EU).

Which countries and territories are covered?

• Already on Feel at Home: Australia, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Macau, New Zealand, Norway, Republic of Ireland, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, United States.

• To be added from September: Belgium, Bulgaria, Channel Islands (Jersey and Guernsey), Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Isle of Man, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia.

How can Three customers get Feel At Home?

If you're a new Three customer you can access the perk on either pay monthly or pay-as-you-go plans.

• All pay-monthly 'Advanced' plans include Feel At Home.

• If you're on pay-as-you-go you'll need to convert your credit into an add-on to get a text, data or minutes allowance to use as part of Feel At Home.

If you're an existing pay-monthly customer and your package doesn't include Feel At Home, you can move to one of the new Advanced plans to get it.

Not on Three? Get a free pay-as-you-go Sim

Even if you're not a Three customer, you can grab its Feel At Home offer.

Just order one of its free pay-as-you-go Sims to pop into your handset while you're away. See the Free Three Sim trick for full step-by-step help.