Non-expiring Australian SIM
 

Are there any Australian SIM cards that don't expire as long as they are used periodically? They all seem to expire 90 days after the last credit, which serves only to lose customers. Even AmaySIM, which intends to break with the poor value tradition by other operators, expires after 90 days. For a regular but infrequent visitor to Australia who wants to keep the same number on each visit, is there a suitable SIM?

What about Truphone?

My thought exactly. You would want one with an Australian number--I don't know how you would get one of those in the UK. You could at least ask them about it.

With Toggle UK you can get a card with a UK and Australian number with good rates. (and inbound calls on your US/UK number are free of charge in both counties).The card itself does not expire but you have to pay a fee per month if you want to keep the australian number alive

0ne year validity
 

Living in Australia, I want to minimise my mobile phone expense, while keeping my number alive for inwards calls. I selected Vodafone and recharge according to their 365 Day Recharge prepaid plan. This means that any recharge I put on the phone will stay alive for 365 days. I can put $20 on, and then keep the phone alive for a year, as long as I don't run the credit down to zero. Any unused credit rolls over when a new credit is made, so I don't have to worry about losing credit. The credit also comes with a certain number of minutes of "vodafone to vodafone" calls to other vodafone mobiles. This means that I can use the phone for calls to and from my daughter (who also has a Vodafone SIM) without eating into the basic dollar credit. The only downside is that Vodafone is still suffering from underinvestment in its network, with signal strength that is sometimes patchy. Still, suits me at the moment. I think this SIM and recharge plan is really what you are looking for.......

No, it's not because it requires a periodic top-up (i.e. increase the balance) every 12 months. In other countries (e.g. the UK), SIM cards remain active as long as you use them (i.e. decrease the balance) periodically.

Lycamobile Australian SIM cards require chargeable usage every 80 days to remain active, which is a much better policy, although they don't seem to offer data yet.

Australian SIM cards
 

My apology. I should not have presumed to judge what you would find "suitable". That is for you to decide. Addressing the questions you posed - I am not aware of an Australian plan that extends validity by use (as do the UK Vodafone SIMs I have). Rather, Australian plans are similar to those in many other countries (eg Germany, Italy, France and New Zealand) in extending validity by a topup. I pointed out an Australian plan that extends validity by 365 days, which is certainly longer than the 90 day plans you quoted in your original post. Whether this is "suitable" is your call, and would depend on how long you want to keep a number alive between "infrequent" visits, and how much you spend on calls during your visits. I would rephrase my conclusion to say that, to me, of the available plans the Vodafone 365 Day Recharge would seem to be the easiest and cheapest for a foreigner to keep valid for infrequent visits.

My original main question was "Are there any Australian SIM cards that don't expire as long as they are used periodically?" and Vodafone, which I had already looked at, doesn't fit these criteria.

Lycamobile, as I have since discovered.

People have their own individual needs, but I don't think there is anything wrong suggesting options that "come close" to what the posters want when you don't have the perfect answer.

I have a close friend who lives in Australia and will probably be seeing him at close to an annual level. It would be nice to have a SIM that work when I hit the ground with the same Australian number everytime.

Lycamobile looks interesting and you can roam with it which I suppose keeps open the option of keeping the SIM alive from abroad, but their roaming rates seem exceptionally high. If they will treat a single text message from abroad as "activity," then it may be your answer, but at $10 a minute roaming in the US/Canada, I have to ask "what are they smoking."