You want to use your smartphone while traveling abroad. But choosing an affordable method can seem mind-numbingly complicated. Should you buy an international roaming plan? And if you do, what does 100 megabytes of data get you anyway? Perhaps you need a hot spot pass? Or a SIM card? If you don’t want an eye-popping phone bill, it’s essential to decide before you’re on the plane.

"The pain you can get from just a couple of mistakes can be big," said Bill Menezes, a principal research analyst covering mobile services for the technology research firm Gartner.

With a little planning, however, you can stay in touch and on budget. Let’s walk through the three simplest ways to do just that, from the most obvious to more creative (and cheaper) solutions.

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United Airlines is getting tough on passengers with oversized carry-on bags, even sending some of them back to the ticket counter to check their luggage for a fee.

The Chicago-based airline has started a push to better enforce rules restricting the size of carry-on bags — an effort that will include instructing workers at security checkpoint entrances to eyeball passengers for bags that are too big.

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We live in an era of airline fees. Where once ticket prices included checked baggage, inflight meals and seat selection, increasingly, those items are add-ons geared towards generating extra income for carriers.

According to a recent survey, there are actually some luxuries passengers are willing to shell out for -- they're just not always in line with what airlines actually charge.

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