As highlighted by one of our readers recently, Maxis postpaid customers are automatically charged the RM15/day roaming pass for unlimited calls if they make or receive a single call while travelling overseas at selected destinations including Singapore. The charge is seen as unfair to frequent international travellers who only need to make and receive a short call. Maxis responded that they are looking into addressing customers who are light users, especially those who prefer to pay affordable pay-as-you-go rates for call roaming.
After receiving a goodwill refund from Maxis, our reader Johnny thought he could bypass Maxis’ RM15/day charge for unlimited calls and SMS by enabling call forwarding to his U Mobile number when he’s in Singapore. With this setup, all voice calls to his Maxis number would be forwarded to U Mobile, which should be considered as a domestic call regardless of his location.
Maxis still charges RM15/day for forwarding calls to Malaysian number while travelling
While the incoming calls were forwarded successfully to his U Mobile line during his stay in Singapore, he was still charged the hefty RM15/day charge despite not picking up any calls on his Maxis postpaid number. When he reached out to Maxis, he was told that international roaming charges still apply if call forwarding was performed while roaming. He was reminded by Maxis that they do not offer pay per use roaming rates for postpaid customers in selected countries, but they will review his feedback and continue to revise their roaming charges from time to time.
Disappointing suggestions from Maxis
Not happy with the explanation, he told Maxis that they are the only telco that charges RM15 per day without the option of offering pay-per-use rates like other telcos. As a comparison, Celcom charges RM1.70 per minute for receiving calls in Singapore, while Digi charges RM1.60 per minute. U Mobile has the lowest rates among the big four at RM1.50 per minute for answering a call while in Singapore.
In an email reply, Maxis reminded Johnny that it does not offer Pay per Use charge for selected countries such as Singapore and the 1 Day Calls & SMS Unlimited Pass will be automatically activated when you make or receive a call, or send more than 3 SMS.
They also suggested him to advise his callers to use WhatsApp call to contact him instead while he’s on an internet connection. Obviously this solution is not workable if the caller uses a fixed-line. If he insists on getting pay-per-use roaming charges, Maxis says it is best to subscribe to a new number or change his current number to Hotlink Prepaid. So it looks like customers on the current Maxis postpaid plans are getting the short end of the stick.
To recap, this RM15/day unlimited calls and SMS pass is only applicable to Maxis postpaid customers travelling to Brunei, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Laos, Macau, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand & Vietnam. If you’re on the older Maxis postpaid plans (Talk and Surf, ValuePlus) or on Hotlink prepaid/postpaid, Maxis charges pay-per-use rates which makes a lot more sense for casual users.
As mentioned in our previous post, Maxis could have charged pay-per-use rates for call roaming and only activate the unlimited pass when the total call roaming usage has reached a certain threshold. Since Maxis charges a premium for its postpaid plans, it is high time that they add roaming perks to its plans similar to Digi’s Roam Like Home or U Mobile’s Unbeatable roaming bundle.
Are you having similar bill shocks when using Maxis Postpaid while travelling overseas? Let us know in the comments below.
Related reading
- Here’s Maxis’ response after being called out for its expensive RM15 call pass for international roaming
- Maxis postpaid users beware! It costs RM15 to answer a short voice call while travelling overseas
- Maxis and Hotlink users can now use 5G in Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia
