Poland: Carrefour Mova - 1st "supermarket MVNO" :-)

[Motel75]

One thing about Mova: you can only add 30 free minutes per month that you get from shopping at Carrefour, and the code for the free minutes expires after two weeks, so you can't save your shopping receipts until the next month. (Initial SIM validity is only 30 days anyway.) The free minutes are only good for landlines and other Mova numbers; add it all up and for 10 zloty starter kit you get 20 normal minutes included, plus it's easy to add 30 minutes extra (look around when you're at Carrefour, you're bound to find 30 minutes worth of receipts lying on the ground or in shopping carts, at check-out counters, etc.), making calls work out to around 20 grosz per minute, provided you only place 50 minutes worth. If calling landlines is such a big deal, Sami Swoi is probably a more hassle-free choice.

[Motel75]

Carrefour has increased the number of bonus minutes you can collect per month from 30 to 60, making it a somewhat better deal, particularly if you like to spend 600 zloty a month at Carrefour or don't mind spending a few minutes looking for discarded shopping receipts in shopping carts.

[Motel75]

Mova is now offering 50 zloty bonus to customers who port their numbers to it. Which might make it a good option for someone looking to escape from a contract, especially if they shop at Carrefour a lot.

[ms93]

Originally Posted by Motel75

Mova is now offering 50 zloty bonus to customers who port their numbers to it. Which might make it a good option for someone looking to escape from a contract, especially if they shop at Carrefour a lot.

Play does the same (maybe quite better) and their offer is IMHO much better. On the other hand, Carrefour is expensive supermarket

[Motel75]

Originally Posted by ms93

Play does the same (maybe quite better) and their offer is IMHO much better. On the other hand, Carrefour is expensive supermarket

True, and I'd tell my wife to switch from her Era contract to Play Fresh if it didn't mean that calling her would cost twice as much.

At the risk of drifting slightly OT, I'm wondering if we have any updates regarding the current options of porting numbers to prepaid in Poland. You can do it to Play and Mova, which are desperately trying to increase their customer numbers. It's not something that the others seem to mention, and you still can't do it to Heyah, unfortunately.

[ms93]

Originally Posted by Motel75

It's not something that the others seem to mention, and you still can't do it to Heyah, unfortunately.

I think you're wrong. Here (in Polish) they say, you can port your number to Heyah.
In English: "Join Heyah! If you have prepaid from other operator and you want to change it saving your number, nothing stops you, join Heyah and we will do all paper work for you!"
And you have to fill two papers and send them to Heyah.

I'm not only sure if you can port from Era to Heyah, but from other networks yes.

[Motel75]

You are right, I was relying on my memory from a few months ago when this wasn't possible. According to a sales rep I talked to, you can indeed switch to Heyah from an Era contract. So it seems that number portability isn't a problem anymore - most operators seem to charge 50 zloty to release your number, but Carrefour, and possibly others, give you 50 zloty credit to compensate.

[Motel75]

I was wrong. You can't port your number from Era to Heyah. My wife just tried it and received a letter explaining that since they are the same company, they're not required to allow number porting, and so they don't. So they would evidently rather lose a customer when she ports to Play instead.

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by Motel75

I was wrong. You can't port your number from Era to Heyah. My wife just tried it and received a letter explaining that since they are the same company, they're not required to allow number porting, and so they don't. So they would evidently rather lose a customer when she ports to Play instead.

Number porting in Poland is free now and it's possible to port a ported number back to the same operator. I don't know for sure if anyone has done it but at least theoretically it's possible to port Era <-> Heyah or Simplus <-> 36.6 "via" another operator .

[Motel75]

When she told Era she was considering porting her contract to another operator, they offered her the chance to switch to Tak Tak (prepaid), but still not Heyah. So Play Fresh it will probably be (for now).