Back in October, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea had taken their customers by surprise by withdrawing the talk time plans and introducing minimum recharge packs as a way to boost their average revenue per user (ARPU). Like you would expect, this move by Bharti Airtel was not liked by the users and they demanded the telco to bring the talk time recharges since a lot of subscribers still depended on them. After a few months of back and forth, Bharti Airtel caved in and reintroduced some of the highest selling prepaid talk time recharges of Rs 100 and Rs 500. So, if you are one of the Airtel users who would like to update your talk time balance, then these are the options you should consider, but again, you can choose the Smart Recharge plans by the company which come with talk time, data benefits.
Talk Time Recharge Plans of Rs 100 and Rs 500 Make a Comeback
On taking a look at the recharge plans available in the My Airtel app, we found that Airtel has listed two talk time recharge plans which were previously removed. These recharge plans are of value Rs 100 and Rs 500. While the Rs 100 talk time recharge plan comes with Rs 81.75 talk time and 28 days validity, the Rs 500 recharge ships Rs 420.73 worth of talk time recharge along with the same 28 days validity. It is worth noting that when the telcos had removed the talk time recharges and introduced the minimum recharge packs starting with Rs 35, they had probably started losing out subscribers on a rapid scale. It is likely that Airtel decided to go back to square one to retain its subscribers who wanted to stick to talk time recharges instead of the bundled combo offerings and minimum recharge plans.
Newly Launched Long Validity Plans of Rs 998 and Rs 597 from Airtel Detailed
Bharti Airtel has also been ramping up its strategy against the competition by living up to the recent trend and introducing the high validity prepaid plans. Firstly, Bharti Airtel launched the Rs 1,699 prepaid plan which came with 365 days validity and then went open market. Soon after that, Bharti Airtel introduced the Rs 998 and Rs 597 prepaid plans which come with 336 and 168 days validity respectively. These options are good ones for subscribers who would like to recharge their numbers once and then forget about it.
The Rs 998 long term prepaid plan by Bharti Airtel offers 12GB data for the entire validity period along with 300 SMS per month benefit. The plan also provides unlimited free, STD, roaming and local calls. The validity of this plan is 336 days. The Rs 597 plan is valid for 168 days, and it provides 6GB of data for the entire validity period along with free unlimited local, STD and roaming calls. There is also the added benefit of 300 SMS per month.
