Lycamobile: credit expires after 90 days and the real GB is 600 MB

Lycamobile: the data gigabyte that shrinks to 600 MB

Lycamobile's real contract isn't in the fine print: it's in the clauses nobody shows you when you buy the SIM card. Credit expires after 90 days, promotional credit after 30, and if you go 45 days without making a call or sending an SMS, your service is cut off. Added up, the timetable tightens: the mandatory top-up every six months becomes, in practice, a top-up every four and a half months at most. The user who peine the thread sums it up bluntly: "the enslaver of minds".

The fine print doesn't end there. There's no tethering or VoIP, 900 freephone callback numbers are excluded, and the data accounting doesn't match what your phone shows: **60% more**, so the 1 GB bundle effectively delivers about **600 MB**. Voice rates and call setup fees complete the picture.

What is Lycamobile's savings plan and why is it not a bargain?

The savings plan doesn't make calls cheaper: it keeps the call setup fee at **30 cents** and the per-minute rate to other networks' mobiles at **12 cents**, a rip-off compared with almost any flat-rate plan. Its only use is charging half price for data bundles while the offer lasts, and it can be kept for as long as you want with a minimum of 30 days. The question hanging in the air is whether this dual pricing distinguishes those who check the website from those who don't. The answer, based on what's on the table, is that the discount applies to the bundle, not to calls.

Negative balance, automatic renewal and the Spanglish menu

Negative balance isn't a Lycamobile thing but a MásMóvil thing, according to the comparison made in the thread: a prepaid SIM forgotten in a drawer racking up debt and a possible court claim. At Lycamobile the problem is different. Anyone signing up for a bundle with automatic renewal finds they can't cancel it until March and that the user menu is in Spanglish. The advice going around: look for the cancellation code on Google rather than on the operator's own website, because signing up through the site lets you choose with or without renewal, but doing it by code leaves you in doubt.

The UK IP address, videos that won't load and the 900 number that does work

The connection comes out with a **UK IP address**, which geolocates visits in the UK and makes many videos unplayable. The connection drops from time to time and reconnecting costs an arm and a leg, with swearing in several languages included. As for VoIP, the experience is that it works as long as they don't notice; tethering is blocked, though some people manage to get it working on a dongle. The 900 freephone numbers do work, except one from a particular operator that appears blacklisted and answers that the number doesn't exist. The 902 numbers, on the other hand, are charged at almost one euro per minute.

Does the number expire if you don't top up within 90 days?

The question remains open: whether 90 days without a top-up means losing only the credit or the number too. The one-year keep-alive for 5 euros adds another unknown: whether the number stays active during that period or gets blocked. And switching back from the SMART plan to the standard one by SMS has no documented answer in the thread.

The legality of expiring credit

The most debated point is whether these clauses comply with Spanish regulations. Keeping the credit of a customer who ports their number away is already considered illegal; credit expiring after three months without use seems like more of the same. Data billing in blocks remains unregulated, just as years ago car parks were forced to charge for exact time and telephony to bill by the second without rounding up to minutes. The equivalent step for data is still missing.

The prediction, with reservations: as long as the rules don't require data to be billed for actual usage, the 600 MB gigabyte will remain the star offer of the fine print.