TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Question For Those Who Use Chippie Phone On Island

I inadvertently let my chippie cellphone number expire. What should I do now to make sure I can use my phone on the island? Thanks.

Probably get a new SIM card, which will be a new number. You might go to an office or TechHub when on the island and see if they can reactivate it, although I doubt it.

I forgot to timely replenish my sim card a few years ago. I do that by adding a dollar to the card from money prepaid on my Chippie account and that extends it about 60 days. The Chippie website indicated that it had expired because I hadn't replenished it. I went ahead and added a dollar to the card and that reinstated it. Since then I have forgotten to add the dollar prior to expiration a few times but it has always allowed me to add the dollar after it expired and the expiration status went away. I would try that before buying a new sim card.

I had the same experience and was able to add the dollar 3 weeks late and restore my number.

Not sure if it is down or gone but the Top-Up site I used to add credit from my Top-Up card has not worked for the past 2 days.

I added credit from the card a week ago and just now checked the expiration date and it was working.

That website also explains how to order a new card from the US. Don't know how late the original poster is, but that also might work if he doesn't already have a card.

It appears either I was using an old URL, or it changed but I was able to find it.

http://buychippieonline.com/

I had that happen to me some years ago. Was able to restart the account by adding funds as reported above. BUT if that does work you should note that you will lose any funds already on the account. Good luck.

I gave up my Chippie with the advent of WhatsApp, open Table and Facebook. Haven’t had a single issue making reservations using those services. If you have T Mobile unlimited no extra charges except calls which are .25 a minute. If you have ATT or Verizon you have options. If you are from Canada - sorry can’t help.

Chippie is now Flow and they are very poor at letting people know so they can recover their phone number. Go to the electronics store at the front of Carrefour at Bush Road. They can issue a new number and set it up in your phone. Also sign up for Whatsapp...

Thanks for the replies. I went to the Flow/Chippie website and added money to my phone number. I went to the website ruralcarrier noted (which I used in the past to extend my number) and it still says no transactions in the past 60 days. Guess I'll have to figure it out when I get to the island.

Good luck. Let us know how it turns out.

I also use WhatsApp on my US phone (and SXM phone) but not every establishment uses it so I still found myself using the local SXM phone some.

I have Spectrum for my US carrier and the rate are just about the same as the SXM phone. I sillt have credit on my card and phone so I did use it some.

Update:

While going through my St. Maarten items, I realized I have a Chippie reloadable top up card that I got at the same time I purchased my sim card. So I went back to the site ruralcarrier linked (which I also have bookmarked on my phone), added $1.00 and now it says my number is extended into May. Not sure why it was not extended when I added funds directly through Flow/Chippie but apparently you have to do it on that website for it to show the phone number extended. So I assume all is good. I will find out in May.

Good deal.