Kuala Lumpur and broader Malaysia are big business destinations for travellers in the manufacturing industries – particularly electronics, solar and automotive – yet keeping in touch with the office and your loves ones back home can prove a costly exercise for business travellers.
While international roaming makes sense on short visits, slipping a Malaysian SIM card into your phone saves you cash on longer stays, with our pick of the bunch the fittingly-named ‘Best Prepaid’ pack from mobile phone network Digi.
Digi Best Prepaid pack: what it costs
A basic starter pack costs RM11.50 (A$3.82), for which you’ll get a SIM card and RM5 (A$1.66) of credit – surprisingly enough for 25 minutes of talk time when calling Australian landline numbers.
You’re then free to buy recharge credit and use it as it suits your needs, whether you need more voice calls, data or a mixture of both.
On the data front, you’ll pay RM15 (A$4.98) for 1GB of high-speed (4G LTE) Internet that’s valid for up to seven days, with higher-volume users saving even more: paying just RM7 (A$2.33) for 1GB of high-speed data to use within one day, or RM10 (A$3.33) for 2GB spread over two days.
For voice calls, you’re looking at RM0.20/min (A$0.07) to Australian landlines and RM0.96/min (A$0.32) to Australian mobiles, while calls within Malaysia are charged at RM0.06 for the first 10 seconds plus RM0.20 for the following two minutes and then RM0.20 for each minute thereafter.
Text messages set you back RM0.08 (A$0.03) per 160 characters to most Malaysian numbers and RM0.60 (A$0.21) to Australian mobiles.
Crunching the numbers, buying a Best Prepaid starter pack and loading it with RM30 of general credit and the RM15 Internet pack costs just A$18.80 overall, for which you’ll get 1GB of data, 85 minutes to Australian landlines, 20 text messages back home, 14 local minutes and 22 local SMS.
Buying your Digi Best Prepaid pack
The only challenge for international travellers is actually getting hold of one of these packs, as Digi doesn’t have a store at Kuala Lumpur International Airport’s main or satellite terminals, used by airlines such as Emirates and Malaysia Airlines.
If that’s where your flight arrives, consider taking the quick ‘KLIA Ekspres’ train across to KLIA2 – the airport’s separate terminal for low-cost airlines – for a fare of just RM2 (A$0.67), where you’ll find a Digi store open 24/7.
Once sorted, you can then jump on the KLIA Expres straight into the city, or if you’d rather go straight to your hotel and fetch your SIM card and recharge vouchers later, use the Digi website to find a store near your hotel or office.
Also read: Review: New Malaysia Airlines A330 business class
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Chris is a a former contributor to Executive Traveller.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
17 Aug 2012
Total posts 2199
You wouldn't wear that suit in Malaysia outside!
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
16 Apr 2016
Total posts 17
The Digi SIM also offers great international roaming so your Malaysian customers can continue to call you on a local MY number even when you are back in Australia
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