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

Heyah now has the one thing that Play Fresh had that it didn't, namely 1-year account validity. But instead of being after every topup, this is British-style, i.e. after every call, MMS, SMS (presumably including free ones within Heyah), or use of data. This also means that Heyah is now a pretty obvious choice for infrequent visitors to Poland who wish to keep their accounts valid without having to top up all the time.

Heyah - Absurdalnie proste zasady, darmowe rozmowy i SMSy ze wszystkimi w Heyah - Na Kart? - Heyah Mix

Orange was the first to "break the ice" as they introduced one year validity as the first in Poland. Obviously making their offer (especially the one for mobile internet) so good, that the other operators had to follow. Now also I think T-Mobile and it's MVNO Heyah also have 1 year validity. I'm wondering how long it'll take for Plus (and perhaps it's MVNOs) to follow as well.

Yes, but Orange's one-year validity was for incoming calls only, and they were not very generous with credit for outgoing calls (no cumulative validity, all credit lost forever on expiration, and validity extension increasing with amount of top-up). Play Fresh was the first with real one-year validity for outgoing, no matter what top-up (even 5 zloty). But yes, I would like to see the end of those credit-vs-validity tables that Polish prepaid has had since the beginning. I think Plus's new owner is likely to avoid any price wars and concentrate on getting his money back, though.

Don't quote me on this, but it looks like checking your balance with *108# also extends your validity by a year. Nice one, Heyah.

I don't think *108# extends validity, but I didn't check it, so I'm not sure.

For sure I can say, that now Orange has 2 year validity - you just need to send START to 8002 for free. The good think is, that it also extends validity of data bonus on Orange Free na karte, so you can have 5GB + 100zł balance valid for 2 years after topping up 100zł. You can extend validity by SMS even every day, so account is valid infinite.

Wow, that's pretty great. I notice that it is indeed for połączenia wychodzące - outgoing calls. Glad to see Orange have discovered that stealing their customers' credit wasn't great for business.

As for Heyah, *108# obviously shouldn't extend validity, but every time I check using it, it displays a later date than the last time, even if I haven't otherwise used the phone. This might be something they'll fix sooner or later, though.

Unfortunately, Heyah is no longer great for account validity. (The 365-day expiration is gone, only retained for existing customers, who have to pay 3 zloty per month for it.) In fact, they have now resorted to dirty tricks.

They have a new Daily tariff (dniówka), and whatever its merits, Heyah is sending users plenty of SMS suggesting they try out "free internet" and the like. But if you agree, you are automatically switched to the new tariff - and your account validity drops to 7 DAYS.

And you can't switch back. (This is hidden in the FAQ section on the Heyah website.)

I lost just under a year of validity doing this - which costs 200 zloty on Heyah. And as I already have plenty of credit, I will now have to spend even more money just to be able to access it after the 7 days are up.

I'd suggest users in Poland look at Virgin Mobile instead - which gives you 365 days after any top-up. (www.virginmobile.pl)

In fact, Heyah is even worse. The account validity is now from the day of the topup - and is non-cumulative. What's more, after that you have only one month to receive calls before service is cut off, not three as before. It's like the way things were over ten years ago.

I'll probably be taking my number to Virgin Mobile, which has 365-day validity, but unfortunately, VM's international rates (and Play's) are not very good.

Another reason to avoid Heyah, and presumably other T-Mobile brands, is they used to give you your credit back if you let the outgoing-calls period expire but then topped up during the incoming-only period. Now, evidently, they don't.

I had a Heyah SIM with 75 zloty on it that I accidentally left in a drawer, and when I retrieved it, it was two weeks into the three-month incoming-only period. When I topped up, all the previous credit was gone. Note that this was still the old standard tariff, not the new dniówka/daily tariff.

Heyah
 

Heyah is not that bad as you desribe

It has 12 month incoming calls free after each top-up
The credit that you put is valid for short time but you can activate
unlimited year validity and it will charge each month 3 PLN rental fee (which is less than 1€)

Internet is cheap with heyah: old tariffs charge 15 PLN for 1GB bundle and better than German prepaids that charge 15€ for 1GB bundles which is 4 prices more than Heyah Poland so it is not so expensive to pay 3 PLN monthly fee for your credit life.

also t-mobile has good internet in many places in Poland

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.

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

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.