Hi all.

 

I have a DTAC sim and was topping up 20 baht every month to extend it by a month, but forgot to do it last month and it has now expired, only a few days ago.  I am resigned to having to buy a new SIM card on my next trip in January, but had read online it may be possible to reactivate it as the number is unlikely to have been given to someone else yet.  The problem I am having is contacting DTAC and wondering if anyone has any ideas.  I can't contact the 1678 number from the SIM as it is expired, and an expensive phone call from England is going to probably wipe out any savings from just buying a new SIM card when I next arrive.  I have tried to go through the website, which is through True, which then links to something called Mari, but every live chat attempt I have made just doesn't connect to anyone.  Any ideas or should I just give up and get a new SIM card in January.

 

Rico

1 hour ago, ricosuave said:

Hi all.

 

I have a DTAC sim and was topping up 20 baht every month to extend it by a month, but forgot to do it last month and it has now expired, only a few days ago.  I am resigned to having to buy a new SIM card on my next trip in January, but had read online it may be possible to reactivate it as the number is unlikely to have been given to someone else yet.  The problem I am having is contacting DTAC and wondering if anyone has any ideas.  I can't contact the 1678 number from the SIM as it is expired, and an expensive phone call from England is going to probably wipe out any savings from just buying a new SIM card when I next arrive.  I have tried to go through the website, which is through True, which then links to something called Mari, but every live chat attempt I have made just doesn't connect to anyone.  Any ideas or should I just give up and get a new SIM card in January.

 

Rico

Normally when you top up the funds are good for a few months ...  I just did mine to check and remaining balance is good until 16-03-26  ...

I would pop into the DTAC office in Central Festival when you arrive 

Or use ding.com or similar and load a small amount onto the sim and see if it reactivates.

If you do manage to get your phone reconnected or have to take a new number in future, rather than pay 20Baht a month, you are better off "buying" an extended credit date.

22 hours ago, ricosuave said:

I have a DTAC sim and was topping up 20 baht every month to extend it by a month, but forgot to do it last month 

Every time you top up, you get another month added.

So, before I leave Pattaya, I go to DTAC in Central, and top-up with 20 baht notes, for how many months it will be, until I am back.

I would give the DTAC store a try in January, but as you say, it will all depend on whether they have re-assigned your number or not.

Edited November 8, 2025Nov 8 by Leo_Bia

12 minutes ago, Leo_Bia said:

Every time you top up, you get another month added.

yes ... but you can only extend for 12 Month in advance. For every top-up, no matter for how much THB, you will get one month extention.

E.g. my sim card is valid until 7th August 2026, last time I topped my sim card up was the 7. August this year

 

My DTAC card expiry increases to 12 months every time I top up.

According to Google, reactivation is not possible once expired

"You cannot reactivate an expired dtac SIM card, especially if it has been inactive for several months; you will need to purchase a new SIM. To prevent this in the future, regularly top up your prepaid SIM or purchase a new plan to extend its validity."

 

 

4 hours ago, Leo_Bia said:

So, before I leave Pattaya, I go to DTAC in Central, and top-up with 20 baht notes, for how many months it will be, until I am back.

As I noted above there is no need to do this.  If you top up with one 20 baht note, you can then "dial" *113*90*9# and your remaining credit is extended for 90 days for the cost of 6 baht.  Repeat again immediately and get another 90 days!  You can even extend it further when you are at home by inputting the above numbers, or I think it is possible on the App too.

It used to be possible to do it for 180 days by replacing the 90 in the above code with 180 but this did not work for me the last time.  If you need 30 days or 60 days only replace the 90 with either 30 or 60 as required.

Thanks for the comments and message I received about this.  Pre-Covid, I wasn't bothered.  My preference then was to just get a new SIM card each year, wipe the slate clean, keep any girls numbers I wanted to hook up with again and ensure girls I wasn't bothered about couldn't randomly call me.

Post Covid, I have now made 3 attempts to keep my SIM card active, here's what happened each year.

Returned home March 2023.  Tried topping up 20 baht a month, a few months down the line, completely forgot all about it, had to get new SIM card.

Returned home March 2024.  Saw online about doing multiple top ups, did that but, crucially, I wasn't able to top up right until my next return date.  Made a note of when I had topped up to, tried to log into DTAC app then, and found the app had logged me out, and I wasn't able to log back in without getting a text, which I was not able to do as I was not in Thailand.

Returned home March 2025 - Went back to the 'Top up 20 baht' regularly again, wrote the word DTAC in big letters on a date each month on my wall calendar.  Found out October and Novembers pages were slightly stuck together and October was completely missed off and it never came into my mind to do it. 

Plan for 2026.  Write the word DTAC in fucking big bold letters, on several days each month, ensure none of the calendar pages are stuck together, and try again.  

5 hours ago, ricosuave said:

Found out October and Novembers pages were slightly stuck together and October was completely missed

This is only the first of November.  The number is not re-assigned until after 90 days with no load and usage (usually).

I told you what you need to do.  In the best case, your number accepts the load.  In the worse case, you lose 2usd. 

I have two DTAC numbers and use both of them.. Today I looked and realised one of them had expired.. It had top up credit of over 100 baht .. I did not think it would expire with credit in it.. but it has. I did not get any notification because the SIM was not in my phone at the time. It is liked to a Gmail account and a bank account and one other online account. Today with apps linking to numbers it can be a real fukn headache if a number is canned.

I went to DTAC.. they pretty much laughed at me after explaining the problems I would have losing the number.. They said sorry .. you need new number.. I said yes I do, I will go to AIS.. and walked out.

13 hours ago, PatsGuy said:

I have two DTAC numbers and use both of them.. Today I looked and realised one of them had expired.. It had top up credit of over 100 baht .. I did not think it would expire with credit in it.. but it has. I did not get any notification because the SIM was not in my phone at the time. It is liked to a Gmail account and a bank account and one other online account. Today with apps linking to numbers it can be a real fukn headache if a number is canned.

I went to DTAC.. they pretty much laughed at me after explaining the problems I would have losing the number.. They said sorry .. you need new number.. I said yes I do, I will go to AIS.. and walked out.

I thought the grace period was a year for recovering your phone number after the SIM had expired, but just asked AI Bob and learned it's now only 45 days.

As most of my calls nowadays are via Line, I have to remember to occasionally check my SIM's expiration date. Just checked again, and good that I did as the expiration date was on 9 Aug, only 3 weeks away. Since each top up only extends the expiration by one month, I made 12 tops at the minimum of 20B each to get the expiration date out to a year, the max.

7 hours ago, forcebwithu said:

I thought the grace period was a year for recovering your phone number after the SIM had expired, but just asked AI Bob and learned it's now only 45 days.

As most of my calls nowadays are via Line, I have to remember to occasionally check my SIM's expiration date. Just checked again, and good that I did as the expiration date was on 9 Aug, only 3 weeks away. Since each top up only extends the expiration by one month, I made 12 tops at the minimum of 20B each to get the expiration date out to a year, the max.

That's strange, when I top up my DTAC sim the validity is always 12 months.

My AIS sim is 1 month per top up, I use the orange machines outside convenience stores, insert 100 bt and add multiple times.

40 minutes ago, bangna said:

That's strange, when I top up my DTAC sim the validity is always 12 months.

My AIS sim is 1 month per top up, I use the orange machines outside convenience stores, insert 100 bt and add multiple times.

I forgot to mention, I have an AIS SIM. Wonder why AIS only allows one month extensions whereas DTAC you can get 1 year from a top up.

46 minutes ago, forcebwithu said:

I forgot to mention, I have an AIS SIM. Wonder why AIS only allows one month extensions whereas DTAC you can get 1 year from a top up.

I am with DTAC, and I only get 1 month per top up.

20 minutes ago, Leo_Bia said:

I am with DTAC, and I only get 1 month per top up.

That is what i get.. if I do 12 x 10 baht top ups does that give me one year ?

2 hours ago, bangna said:

That's strange, when I top up my DTAC sim the validity is always 12 months.

My AIS sim is 1 month per top up, I use the orange machines outside convenience stores, insert 100 bt and add multiple times.

43 minutes ago, Leo_Bia said:

I am with DTAC, and I only get 1 month per top up.

@bangna , what was the expiration date before you topped up? If 11 months from the top up date, that would explain the increase in expiry date to 12 months.

3 hours ago, PatsGuy said:

That is what i get.. if I do 12 x 10 baht top ups does that give me one year ?

Yes, apart from 20 baht is minimum, is it not?

Pain in the arse using that machine in Central Festival, but it's only once a year.

3 hours ago, PatsGuy said:

That is what i get.. if I do 12 x 10 baht top ups does that give me one year ?

Nope.

I did 2 top ups the same day. Only extended by 30 days iirc.

No need to continually be topping up 20bht/month.

Check the app to see if Sim is still valid. If it is then top up via the app, then go to the app home page then scroll down to popular services.

Select Jaidee service, then Jaidee Day Giveaway. Might just show as Jaidee Day Gi( does on mine)

It'll tell you how long your sim is still valid for(inc the expiry date).

Scroll down to the bottom and you have the options as per screenshot.

This only works with a valid current sim.

Edited July 20Jul 20 by Baddave

39 minutes ago, Leo_Bia said:

Yes, apart from 20 baht is minimum, is it not?

Pain in the arse using that machine in Central Festival, but it's only once a year.

20bht minimum in the Dtac app.

Edited July 20Jul 20 by Baddave

12 hours ago, Baddave said:

Nope.

I did 2 top ups the same day. Only extended by 30 days iirc.

No need to continually be topping up 20bht/month.

Check the app to see if Sim is still valid. If it is then top up via the app, then go to the app home page then scroll down to popular services.

Select Jaidee service, then Jaidee Day Giveaway. Might just show as Jaidee Day Gi( does on mine)

It'll tell you how long your sim is still valid for(inc the expiry date).

Scroll down to the bottom and you have the options as per screenshot.

This only works with a valid current sim.

I wish I had known this before.. Thanks a heap.. I just did a 15 baht 180 days extension. I never use the number other than for OTP and other verifications.. so it is easy for me to forget to keep the SIM valid..

FYI AIS allows 10 baht top ups..

Edited July 21Jul 21 by PatsGuy

21 hours ago, forcebwithu said:

@bangna , what was the expiration date before you topped up? If 11 months from the top up date, that would explain the increase in expiry date to 12 months.

I can only go by my flights home. Late October 204 I topped up the DTAC number, giving an expiry date of 28 October 2025.

Late September 2025 I topped up and received expiry date of 20 September 2026.

My AIS sim I inserted a 100 bt note to an orange machine and topped up 8x10bt, there is a small additional charge. Each top up gave me an additional month.

Edited July 21Jul 21 by bangna