Poland: Heyah now has 1-year account validity after every billable action

[Motel75]

Heyah now has the one thing that Play Fresh had that it didn't, namely 1-year account validity. But instead of being after every topup, this is British-style, i.e. after every call, MMS, SMS (presumably including free ones within Heyah), or use of data. This also means that Heyah is now a pretty obvious choice for infrequent visitors to Poland who wish to keep their accounts valid without having to top up all the time.

Heyah - Absurdalnie proste zasady, darmowe rozmowy i SMSy ze wszystkimi w Heyah - Na Kart? - Heyah Mix

[kuba.g]

Orange was the first to "break the ice" as they introduced one year validity as the first in Poland. Obviously making their offer (especially the one for mobile internet) so good, that the other operators had to follow. Now also I think T-Mobile and it's MVNO Heyah also have 1 year validity. I'm wondering how long it'll take for Plus (and perhaps it's MVNOs) to follow as well.

[Motel75]

Yes, but Orange's one-year validity was for incoming calls only, and they were not very generous with credit for outgoing calls (no cumulative validity, all credit lost forever on expiration, and validity extension increasing with amount of top-up). Play Fresh was the first with real one-year validity for outgoing, no matter what top-up (even 5 zloty). But yes, I would like to see the end of those credit-vs-validity tables that Polish prepaid has had since the beginning. I think Plus's new owner is likely to avoid any price wars and concentrate on getting his money back, though.

[Motel75]

Don't quote me on this, but it looks like checking your balance with *108# also extends your validity by a year. Nice one, Heyah.

[ms93]

I don't think *108# extends validity, but I didn't check it, so I'm not sure.

For sure I can say, that now Orange has 2 year validity - you just need to send START to 8002 for free. The good think is, that it also extends validity of data bonus on Orange Free na karte, so you can have 5GB + 100zł balance valid for 2 years after topping up 100zł. You can extend validity by SMS even every day, so account is valid infinite.

[Motel75]

Wow, that's pretty great. I notice that it is indeed for połączenia wychodzące - outgoing calls. Glad to see Orange have discovered that stealing their customers' credit wasn't great for business.

As for Heyah, *108# obviously shouldn't extend validity, but every time I check using it, it displays a later date than the last time, even if I haven't otherwise used the phone. This might be something they'll fix sooner or later, though.