Having limited airtime is the order of everyday life for most mobile phone subscribers who are forced to run on a budget. Such subscribers do not have the luxury of talking through the phone for a long time, despite having to make important calls, concerning family, business, or work.
Such people do not have the luxury of recharging as they wish, so they have to work with what they have and maximize it to achieve all their phone call purposes.
First of all, when running on a budget it is good to utilize off-peak call hours, which are characterized by cheap call rates across all networks. For instance, on Safricom’s Uwezo Tariff, one can enjoy call rates as low as Ksh2 per minute as compared to peak hours that cost Ksh4 per minute. Every pre-paid subscriber is by default on this tariff, hence the user will only be required to program themselves to utilize the cheaper hours of the day.
A part from off-peak hours, there are also time-to-time offers that subscribers should take note of and utilize maximally. One of the current offers is the ‘Storo Bonus’ that rewards callers with 200 percent of their daily target. One can make use of such promotions by hitting their target early so that they enjoy ‘free’ calls for the rest of the day. One can opt-in or check their status by dialing *460#. Under this offer, customers also get a 200MB free bundle that the customers can use to learn, stay entertained, and enjoy all the content YouTube has to offer.
Sometimes a subscriber might find him/herself using a lot of airtime to purchase data bundles, especially for watching videos on Youtube. In May, Safaricom announced that all its customers purchasing the All in One Monthly Bundle will enjoy an additional 5 Gigabytes of YouTube for free, valid for 30 days.
Such an offer can save one a lot of airtime, putting in mind that this could be at least Ksh5,000 at the rate of Ksh1 per megabyte. The offer is also available on other bundle purchases on Safaricom, at a subsidized price. It is available on the *544# menu.
On top of it, Safaricom offers cheaper bundles through the All in one option on the *544#which comes with free Youtube bundles.
Another current offer is the Tunukiwa Kredo Dabo Dabo, which affords you, whether on Prepay, PostPay or Hybrid, the opportunity to access and buy personalized pre-defined Airtime bundles that offer double the value of the purchase price enabling you to talk twice as much with double airtime.
The offer can be accessed by dialing *444*0# and selecting from our wide range of options ranging from 24-hour offers to 30-day offers.
Subscribers should also do away with subscriptions that are not important but eat away your airtime. This can be one by dialing *100# and then choosing option five, where customer subscriptions are visible, and opting out of the ‘useless’ ones.
Safaricom subscribers should also utilize the ‘out of bundle management’ feature, which ensures customers are not billed from their airtime when browsing the internet. Under this feature, data charges will only be on data bundles. Subscribers can opt-in by dialing *544# and selecting Out Of Bundle then choosing “Activate”.
As a precautionary step, it is good for every subscriber purchases the airtime they need since having ‘excess’ airtime in the phone will encourage one to make unnecessary calls that will drain their airtime. Having enough of the airtime one needs will encourage
one to use it sparingly.
