This is the part of the website that, frankly, most travel-eSIM companies hide. Which we understand — it’s not the world’s most flattering topic. But it’s the question every careful buyer wants answered before they hand over a card.
So: what actually goes wrong, and what happens when it does?
The five things that fail
In the order they happen, from “happens a lot” to “happens almost never.”
1. The eSIM is installed, but the wrong settings are flipped
The single most common cause of “it doesn’t work” emails. Either the eSIM line isn’t enabled, or it’s enabled but the default data line is still set to the home SIM. Or, more annoyingly, the phone’s Mobile Data Switching feature is silently routing data through the home SIM despite your selection.
Fix: walk through the troubleshooting guide. Five steps, two minutes.
How often: roughly 70% of “my eSIM isn’t working” tickets.
2. The local network is having a bad day
Mobile networks have outages. Tokyo, Bangkok, Paris — every now and then a cell tower has a wobble and a chunk of users lose data for an hour. Not specific to eSIMs; your roaming home SIM would do the same.
Fix: usually resolves itself in under an hour. If it doesn’t, toggling airplane mode forces a different tower selection.
How often: rare — maybe 1% of trips.
3. The phone hits a stuck state after a long flight
Sometimes after 14 hours in airplane mode, a phone’s cellular stack ends up in a weird state. The eSIM is fine, the network is fine, but the phone refuses to register.
Fix: a full restart of the phone clears it. (Not airplane mode toggle — actual restart.)
How often: 1–2% of trips, mostly on long-haul.
4. The QR was already used or got corrupted
Every eSIM QR has a limited number of installs. If you’ve installed and deleted and reinstalled multiple times, you can exhaust those installs. Or, more rarely, the QR data gets corrupted in transit.
Fix: we re-issue a fresh QR. Takes us about 5 minutes once you message us.
How often: well under 1%.
5. Genuine eSIM-provider failure
Very rarely, our network partner has a backend issue that prevents your specific eSIM from activating. We can see it from our end; you just see “No Service.”
Fix: usually we can re-provision a fresh eSIM within 15 minutes. If we can’t, we refund in full.
How often: <0.1% of orders.
Our refund promise, in plain terms
If your eSIM never activates and we can’t fix it, you get a full refund. No paperwork, no “service fee,” no “we’ll review your case in 5–10 business days.” We process the refund the moment we close the ticket.
If your eSIM activated and worked for a chunk of your trip before something went wrong, we’ll prorate refunds based on remaining days/data. We’re reasonable about this; we’d rather have a happy ex-customer who tells their friend than an angry one who tells five.
How to reach us when it’s 2am at your hotel
Our support is staffed by real people across multiple timezones — there’s almost always someone awake. Median first reply is under 10 minutes. The chat widget on every page is the fastest path; contact if you’re on a laptop. Bring your order number and a screenshot of what you’re seeing on the phone.
The honest summary
The vast majority of “my eSIM isn’t working” tickets are settings issues that resolve in two minutes. Real provider failures are rare but possible — and when they happen, the cost falls on us, not you.