Overseas Travel: How can I avoid incoming call costs but still use free text/data roaming while abroad?

The problem is that I don't know how "Do not disturb." is implemented. Is it and unconditional forward to voicemail or and auto-reject all calls?  The two have very different results from a billing perspective. I know that forwarding all incoming calls to voicemail works to avoid being charged for incoming calls. 

That's not really diagnostic. What you should do is set "Do not disturb" to on and then enter this code on the keypad, "*#21#" and press send. (That's asterisk-hash-2-1-hash) If it comes back and says, "All calls forwarded to +18056377243" then you're golden.

What this tells me is that the "Do not disturb" setting does not actually set the forward all calls to voicemail. It probably is just rejecting all incoming calls before they ring. To me, this runs the risk of creating a billing event for each incoming call. Maybe I'm wrong but I wouldn't want to take the risk. It's safe to set call forwarding to the voicemail number. I and others can attest that doing this works.

This is what I was told yesterday in chat with T-Mobile rep,  "just don't answer, you won't be charged."  We have been getting an increasing number of "scam likely," and just plain junk calls, so after reading all of this, I'm a little reluctant to take the rep at his word.  Off to France in a couple of days, and will probably take the direct to voicemail route just to be safe.  Assume that back in the apartment, on wi-fi, we are good to enable normal mode and use just as we would at home in the USA.

They still come through here, though some, maybe half, are labeled "scam likely" so we know not to answer.  Many others come through clear with spoofed numbers so they appear to be local calls.  It may be getting better, but it's far from perfect.  To reference my original post, even the calls that are caught and identified as  "spam likely" get through to the phone, so without engaging direct to voicemail while traveling, each of the spam calls is going to cost a quarter.

I was told the same. If you don't pick up a call, and if you don't listen to your voice mail, you won't be charge: it would not be legal. Pffff!

I think I'll change my message asking callers to send me a text and set up unconditional forward to make sure that I don't get charged. I called perhaps 5 times to figure these issues out before I found the community feature, and have been told something different every time.

One told me that I could call France on WIFI calling for free. I did, just a few minutes and was charged $3/minute, and received a $57 bill. Thank goodness, T-Mobile agreed to remove the fee. They are nice folks, but boy, it would be great if they were better trained.

Test first to make sure your phone works in Airplane mode on WiFi. I’ve tried with my G7 but can’t make it work.

Hello, so I understand that to avoid the one minute charge for incoming calls abroad that go unanswered, we can enable unconditional call forwarding.  I'm travelling to Brazil in a few months and have the Magenta plan.  So 3 followup questions for @tmo_chris :

1) Does T-Mobile charge for using the service of unconditional call forwarding? I looked online but found no info regarding prices or fees.

2) Per T-Mobile, "Calls from Simple Global countries, including over Wi-Fi, are $.25/min".  Let's say I'm using WhatsApp or Google Voice for those Wi-Fi calls abroad.  Will I still be charged the $.25/min?

3) Now let's say I try making calls over the 2G international data that is included in my Magenta plan.  I know the call quality will be horrible, but would there be any charges incurred in that Call situation?

Thank you!!

Any recent news on this?

Going from U.S. to Europe. I want to use data and text, but also want to be able to reject calls at times. Is there anything that allows a quick toggle of call reception on and off while maintaining roaming data and SMS/MMS on at all times?

Probably not, but I wanted to check in.

Cheers!

Looking for any recent experience with this. 
In addition, is it possible to enable/disable unconditional call forwarding while abroad or does this only work in the U.S.?

https://www.t-mobile.com/support/coverage/international-roaming-checklist still says as of 8/2022:

Calling while abroad
Incoming calls are routed automatically to your phone...

Your voicemail password & charges
Great news, there's no extra charge for people leaving a voicemail in your inbox when you are roaming internationally. However, you will be charged for the following:

If your phone is on when you get an incoming call, even if you don't answer it and it goes to voicemail, the call is charged one minute for the call coming into the phone. (There are no charges at all if your phone is turned off.)
If you call your voicemail from your mobile phone to listen to messages, that call will be charged at the international roaming rate of the country you're in.
If you don't want to be charged for listening to your messages, you can access your voicemail from a landline or other phone. You'll need your voicemail password (the one you selected during voicemail setup). If you've forgotten your password, you can reset it by contacting T-Mobile Customer Service.

From a landline or other phone, call your mobile number and have it go to voicemail.
Interrupt your voicemail greeting by pressing * (the star key).
When it tells you to, enter your voicemail password.
Follow the menu options to check your voicemail messages.
Note: Keep in mind, the landline or other phone you're using may charge you long distance fees when calling your phone to get your messages. Check into that ahead of time so you know what to expect.

So I have magenta max military and just went from Iceland to Bahrain for the next 2 months in Iceland I didn’t need to have my data roaming on in Bahrain I do for my service to work will I get charged for having that on or will it do my normal 5gb of high speed and 256kbs after that?