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Telecom offers: Customers spoilt for choice

DUBAI — Etisalat and du, the two main telecom operators in the UAE, yesterday made similar promotional offers once again, spoiling customers for choice.

Earlier last week, both the service providers had sparred over similar advertisements promoting international landline calls, with each claiming their’s was the original offer.

Yesterday, however, Etisalat made its Ramadan offer for prepaid Wasel card users (offering a 10 per cent extra credit on recharges of Dh100 or more) a permanent feature while du launched a new recharge card offering two options to its prepaid line mobile users by offering them ‘more credit’ or ‘more time’.

When asked, an Etisalat official said, “Our offer is permanent unlike our competitor’s which is time bound.”

du officials, on the other hand, brushed aside the comment saying their offer was totally different, and claimed that it was a first in the region.

Osman Sultan, Chief Executive Officer of du, said that the ‘WoW card’ for its ‘Pay as You Go’ customers (prepaid), was the first of its kind in the region. “We are creating a healthy competition in the market,” Sultan said.

Referring to the recent ‘war’ over advertisements, Sultan said, “Everybody is focusing on promotions. We believe it’s one way of looking at competition. I’ll still say that no other telecom operator in the region has offered the WoW card till yet.”

The card, which was made available from yesterday at all the 1,200 du outlets and on-line shops in the UAE, offers customers the choice of ‘more credit’ or ‘more time’, a choice they can make while recharging their accounts.

Sultan explained that the card provides 20 per cent extra credit which is an introductory limited period offer till December 31 — 15 per cent will be applied thereafter.

The standard option is now labelled as ‘more time’, which means if customers select this option, they can avail themselves of the credit as per their requirements.

However, the entire ‘more credit’ balance has to be used up within a specified validity period though each recharge denomination will have a unique validity period for this option.

The Dh20 recharge card gives a value of Dh24 valid for 10 days on recharging with the ‘more credit’ option, Dh50 gives a value of Dh60 validity for 15 days, Dh100 gives a value of Dh120 valid for 20 days and Dh200 gives a value of Dh240 validity for 30 days.

“Customers who have regular to high usage will prefer to use the ‘more credit’ option for every recharge while customers with low usage could plan to use the ‘more credit’ option on occasions where they need to make more calls within a short period of time for eg. weekends or during festivals,” he added.

Customers can activate one option on one recharge and activate the other on a subsequent recharge and have both the options available at any given point of time.

Sultan also revealed that until September 2007 end, the total customer base of du had reached 880,000.

Meanwhile, Etisalat yesterday announced that its promotional offer made during Ramadan for Wasel card users -offering a 10 per cent extra credit on recharges of Dh100 or more- would now be a permanent feature.

Khalifa Al Shamsi, vice president Marketing, Consumer Etisalat said: “Customers’ recharging Wasel accounts, and the additional credit they gain from various promotions, are valid for the lifetime of the account and not restricted to any set period of time.”

“This is so that our customers feel complete comfort and relief when making calls and not forcing them to consume their credit in a restricted period,” he added.

Customers who buy a new Wasel prepaid SIM card for the value of Dh165 will get free credit of Dh65. Etisalat’s Wasel customers can gain extra credit, (the value of which depends on the kind of promotion), when recharging their prepaid account through Etisalat’s on-line website, mobile payment service, auto-pay service, at many banks located across the country, and Emirates Post.