Saving Money on Phone calls

[FolkGuitar]

My wife doesn't use her phone very often... perhaps 2-3 calls a week, if that much. Her phone is on a pre-paid account with 'True.'

Unfortunately, these pre-paid accounts 'expire' after 30 days and you no longer have access to the money, and this was happening to her all too often. But if we got her a monthly billing account, the regular monthly fees would be higher than the cost of the calls she usually makes.

 

So I called the head office and asked to speak with someone who could speak English (my Thai isn't good enough for this sort of thing,) and could tell me about other options she could use. And I struck Gold!

 

The rep told me about a service they offer in which you can purchase extra blocks of time before expiration.

Dial *934# and confirm, wait for sms message, and you get an additional 30 days tacked onto the account. The cost is 7 baht.

You can do this twelve times per year (but I guess you really only need 11,) and you can do them all at once rather than having to do

it once a month.

 

We put a couple of hundred baht into her account, called the number 11 times, and now her 'balance' shows an expiration date of Aug 7, 2015 instead of next month. Cost 84 baht and stops the inconvenience of expiration and the loss of money!

 

This works with 'True.'  I don't know if other telephone providers offer this service, but for those who can benefit from it, it's worth asking about.

 

 

[Diplomatico]

Good info, thanks....I also use TrueMoveH pre-paid.  You could have also just 'topped up' with 50 baht to extend the expiration by a month.  Yeah, it's 50 baht instead of 7 baht but you get 50 baht credit in return.  

 

On the bright side, your wife doesn't rip through thousands of baht on her telephone each month.  

[Dante99]

DTAC has the same service available, might be cheaper but either way it is not much.

[roger1999]

In case anyone is interested, my phone plan is with AIS and I have a contract for the minimum number of talk minutes and messages (unless they have a new plan that I am unaware of.)  

 

My monthly bill is always 286 baht deducted automatically from my bank account.  My friends overseas can't believe I have a cell phone bill of less than $10/month.

[inzman]

I'm on true prepaid, I top up every 6 weeks or so, 100 baht , 1 year validity, my friends can't believe it in the USA.

[Diplomatico]

So I tried this today. Denied. It's only for customers who have had service for at least 90 days.

[FolkGuitar]

Good info, thanks....I also use TrueMoveH pre-paid.  You could have also just 'topped up' with 50 baht to extend the expiration by a month.  Yeah, it's 50 baht instead of 7 baht but you get 50 baht credit in return.  
 
On the bright side, your wife doesn't rip through thousands of baht on her telephone each month.  

It's nice being married to someone who doesn't have her nose buried in a cell phone 24/7. I doubt she goes through 30 baht per month on her phone.


Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

[eyecatcher]

Of course if both callers are in the vicinity of wifi then there are apps that allow free calls
Line is the most popular for calls and messaging, facebook does the same.

[Thighlander]

I've been buying forty thb increments with AIS, from the phone shops.  You can do 20 at the machines, but they add 2 thb.  

[Bpuumike]

If your wife makes such little use of her phone get a DTAC pay-as-you-go SIM. Credit is good for 1 year.

[FolkGuitar]

If your wife makes such little use of her phone get a DTAC pay-as-you-go SIM. Credit is good for 1 year.

 

Thanks for the suggestion, but as I said in my first post, we solved the problem without needing to switch providers.

It's good to know that there are alternatives though, just in case....

[northernjohn]

If your wife makes such little use of her phone get a DTAC pay-as-you-go SIM. Credit is good for 1 year.

 

That is what I do with AIS points are good for one year. If at any time doing that year I buy more minutes the whole thing is good for a year. Just buy the cards at 7/11.

 

Not that I am a high roller but jeez I sure am not a cheap Charlie either. I use Skype for long distance. For local calls I often have to call people back as it cost them to much on what ever their plan is. One baht one minute. 5 baht one minute to North America when I am not near my computer. I Can remember paying more than that to call 150 miles in North America. Then again I can also recall only one phone in the house and it was on a party line.

 

All these plans what happens if an emergency comes up and you find your self making lots of calls and need more time. I just go to a 7/11 and purchase it there they even put it in for me. Being tech challenged my wife usually does it for me.  

[Thighlander]

I call the US for free through my US based Gmail account.  Never put a dime in my account.  Actually calls numbers for free, too, not just other users.

 

With DTAC, 004 code will get you 3 thb per minute to the us....might work on ais, too.

Edited August 8, 2014 by Thighlander

[uptoyoumyfriend]

my true inter sim plan gives me one year with any top up.

like wise there is a plan at dtac where all i have to do is one activity every 40 days to stay on.like send an sms.

the name of the plan is kongapan if i remember it right.

i talk about regular phone service.

[MrBrad]

Thank you FolkGuitar for the excellent and timely suggestion.  My renewal day was coming up next week on the 13th.

 

I'd been finding that my phone wouldn't allow me to call on a couple occasions over the past few months.  The recording told me that I had zero baht in my account.  This was a bit of a shocker since I knew I had more than 300 baht unused.  Nonetheless I went to a local phone shop and put in another 300 baht; back came the text message saying I now had 600+ baht unused!  Great!  But what the hell is going on?

 

A month later--mid-July--the same thing happened.  But being a slow learner, I again didn't know what was happening.  I repeated scenario #1 above almost step by step, only this time at the True store in the mall.  She confirmed in good English that I had no money in my account, and pointed to a machine across the room where I could add cash to the account.  Once again I'm gobsmacked to see that I now have lord-knows how many baht in my account!

 

I returned to the good-English-speaking clerk, and asked her to explain why this is happening.  In the 4-plus years I've been here, I've never had to think about adding to my account on a regular monthly basis.  I don't use my phone much at all, and sometimes would go 4 or 5 months without adding anything.  Now that's all changed.  She said that I needed to add even as little as 1 or 2 baht monthly in order to keep my phone working.  They have over 600 baht in my account, but they want more.

 

So, seeing this from FolkGuitar really makes my day.  I just applied a couple more months as a test, and I'm good until October 10.  Thank you!

Edited August 9, 2014 by MrBrad

[FolkGuitar]

Thank you FolkGuitar for the excellent and timely suggestion.  My renewal day was coming up next week on the 13th.

 

I'd been finding that my phone wouldn't allow me to call on a couple occasions over the past few months.  The recording told me that I had zero baht in my account.  This was a bit of a shocker since I knew I had more than 300 baht unused.  Nonetheless I went to a local phone shop and put in another 300 baht; back came the text message saying I now had 600+ baht unused!  Great!  But what the hell is going on?

 

A month later--mid-July--the same thing happened.  But being a slow learner, I again didn't know what was happening.  I repeated scenario #1 above almost step by step, only this time at the True store in the mall.  She confirmed in good English that I had no money in my account, and pointed to a machine across the room where I could add cash to the account.  Once again I'm gobsmacked to see that I now have lord-knows how many baht in my account!

 

I returned to the good-English-speaking clerk, and asked her to explain why this is happening.  In the 4-plus years I've been here, I've never had to think about adding to my account on a regular monthly basis.  I don't use my phone much at all, and sometimes would go 4 or 5 months without adding anything.  Now that's all changed.  She said that I needed to add even as little as 1 or 2 baht monthly in order to keep my phone working.  They have over 600 baht in my account, but they want more.

 

So, seeing this from FolkGuitar really makes my day.  I just applied a couple more months as a test, and I'm good until October 10.  Thank you!

 

 

Glad I was able to help.

We discovered the same money issue with my wife's phone. It showed a zero balance, but when we put in 300 baht, it showed a balance of over 600 baht. I guess we never really 'lose' the money, only lose 'access' to it, and when we add time to the account, once again can access those funds. Well, 84 baht and five minutes time well spent, and my wife won't have to deal with the problem again until next August.