I have been very reluctant to adopt eSIM, and have preferred physical SIM, since I assumed that if I lose my phone I will lose all my eSIMs whereas with a physical SIM I lose only the card in the phone at the time.

 

However, I am seeing the writing on all the wall and I may have to adopt eSIM since my next phone may not support physical SIMs. I have discovered that if my phone is lost, I can remotely erase the eSIMs from the phone. To get back  my Philipines SMART eSIM, I can apparently then use the original QR code to load the eSIM onto a new phone. Anyway I would like to know if I can do the same with an AIS eSIM QR code. I did ask AIS (they said no), but they answered very quickly and I don’t think they understood what I was talking about. 

 

What are your experiences with this? Does it work? I don’t want to be in, say, China, lose my phone, and have to go to an AIS store in person in Thailand in order to get my phone number back and receive banking OTPs, etc.

 

If I can re-use the QR code however (provided it has been erased on the old phone), this essentially solves my problem because I can get my AIS number back from outside Thailand. 

 

Thanks in advance for helpful replies. 

I have post-paid AIS subscription, and a quick call to their customer service 1175 fixes everything, including any eSIM issues. 

Apparently nobody cares about this issue except me, but I bought an AIS eSIM today, loaded it on my phone, deleted it, and tried to install it again from the same QR code. It did not work, so that answers the question. 

Request another QR code. If you have an iPhone, the eSIM is saved in your Apple/icloud account, comes in handy if you lose your phone. Just sign in on the new phone and viola…

15 hours ago, novacova said:

Request another QR code. If you have an iPhone, the eSIM is saved in your Apple/icloud account, comes in handy if you lose your phone. Just sign in on the new phone and viola…

 

It’s my understanding that the eSIM is NOT backed up and saved in the cloud. 

I learned that an AIS eSIM QR code is usually a one-time deal. Once you scan and activate it on your device, that’s it—it's set up and can't be reused. If you switch devices or need a new eSIM, you typically have to get a fresh QR code from your provider. I ran into this issue and contacted customer support to get things sorted.

 

If you’re dealing with eSIMs and need more info or guidance, I recommend checking out Simify. They offer some great resources and tips on managing eSIMs and might be able to help you out.