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

[Motel75]

That's true of the old tariff, which you can't activate anymore. The one-year validity (rok ważność konta) is not available at all with the Dniówka/daily tariff. What's worse is:

- On Dniówka, credit validity is not additive, as it was in the old tariff - meaning if you put 50 zl and then 50 zl you only get the validity of 50 zl (100 days, rather than 3 months + another 3 months up to 1 year in the old tariff).
- Switch to Dniówka and all your credit expires seven days after you make the switch, no matter how much account validity you had saved up - forcing you to top up immediately.
- You cannot switch out of the Dniówka tariff.
- Heyah sends out misleading SMS that mention some bonus you can get by entering a short code, without mentioning you will be switching to Dniówka by so doing (with all the drawbacks listed above). In my case, stupidly, it was "free internet for a year." Doh.
- The incoming-calls-only period under Dniówka is only 30 days, compared to 90 before, and the validity period offered by topups is less generous (and, as mentioned above, not additive). And if you enter this period, you now lose all your account credit - Heyah didn't used to do this.

Heyah used to be the clear choice for visitors to Poland, but I'm assuming that after it offered free 365-day validity after every call two years ago, revenues must have gone down, and the beancounters took a closer look (that was the first benefit to go). Dniówka is probably still a good deal if you use it a lot and top up regularly, but the much less generous account validity and credit-stealing are not very nice.

Now there's no single obvious choice - Klucz Mobile has cheap international and domestic calls and data and 365-day validity, but it's a small company and SIMs can be hard to find. Lycamobile and Lebara are easier to find, but you have to use the account every 90 days or less or you lose it, including your number. Virgin has 365-day validity but expensive international calls. Etcetera.

I agree that internet prices are much better in PL. T-Mobile offers 6 GB for 30 zl. That's four times better than anything in Germany.

[sakr]

I agree that Klucz Mobile sim might be a bit hard to get, especially for a short term visitor, however this official list of sellers might be helpful:
https://www.klucz.net/Help/SalesPointsInPoland

[Motel75]

I've transferred my Heyah number to Klucz Mobile - it was no trouble and is working fine. One thing I noticed was that when I called my Ukrainian mobile to test, the number that displayed wasn't mine - I'll try this again in a couple of days to see if this resolves itself (could be a temporary number due to the number porting, or it could have something to do with how Klucz is able to offer such low rates, by going through a wholesaler or something). Calling a Polish phone displayed the correct number.

If I interpreted the contract number correctly, it looks like about a thousand people have ported their numbers to Klucz already. I can only guess what that means about the overall size of the customer base.

It occurs to me that Klucz might also be an excellent choice for data in Poland. Even though its rates are not quite as good as T-Mobile's (30 zloty gets you 5 GB instead of 6 GB), the one-year expiration means no more messing around with having to top up frequently or buying a new SIM to replaced an expired one or paying 3 zloty a month to keep the line active.

And that list of retail outlets is very comprehensive - not to mention Ruch kiosks are everywhere. But I was surprised to see no outlets listed at some important "gateway" places like Słubice (on the German border) and Terespol (on the Belarusian one). At least Hrebenne (on the Ukrainian border) has two.