We live in a global village today and for young people looking for greener pastures, there are countless opportunities overseas. The thought of leaving everything you’ve ever known and loved behind and moving to a foreign country can be unnerving and exciting at the same time.
In all this transition, you might want to hang onto some semblance of home. This can be a family heirloom or something as simple as retaining your current phone number so you don’t have to buy a new one and start afresh when you come back.
See, Safaricom along with all other carriers in Kenya are predominantly prepaid services which means that your current phone number is only valid for as long as you’re using it. After a certain period of inactivity, Safaricom locks your number and takes it back to the market to be bought and registered by another subscriber.
Related:
- Visiting Kenya for the first time? Here’s your tech guide
- MTN Uganda Launches International Data Roaming Bundles
- How to get a SIM Card for first-time visitors to Kenya
If you’re going to be away from home for long periods, this doesn’t exactly work for you. Luckily, Safaricom now offers users a way to keep their Safaricom number alive even during long periods of inactivity, and in this post, we talk you through how to do it.
Safaricom Daima Bundles
Safaricom’s Daima bundles allow you to keep your Safaricom number alive and active even when you aren’t using it. This prevents the number from being deactivated and reprovisioned to other subscribers.
There are 3 packages offered by Safaricom depending on the period of inactivity you’re looking at, all at different prices. Here’s a quick breakdown.
- 6 months – KES 200
- 12 months – KES 500
- 24 months- KES 1,000
For the sake of convenience, Safaricom allows any subscriber to purchase these bundles for another Safaricom number so if you find yourself out of the country with the SIM Card for the number in question, someone else from home can activate one of these bundles for your line.
Also worth noting is that these packages come with an allocation of 20 minutes and 20 SMS every month. That is a nice perk.
So how do you purchase these bundles? How do you ensure that you don’t lose your Safaricom number even when you’re out of the country for long periods at a time?
- On your Safaricom number, dial *100#
- Select option 4. My Account
- Select Daima bundles
- Select option 1 Activate and choose from the packages mentioned above.
You can pay using your Airtime or if you have some funds in your M-PESA, you can use that to pay. Important to note is that this Safaricom Daima package is only applicable to Safaricom Prepaid customers. users of Till, Cooperate or those on PostPaid plans cannot access this.
Related:
- How to Update your Safaricom SIM Registration Details Online
- How to Update your Airtel Kenya SIM Registration Details online
Even as you do this, you might want to update your SIM Registration details before the Communication Authority shuts off those SIM Cards whose details haven’t been updated with the carrier. Details for the same are in the above-linked posts.
