Celcom’s revised FIRST postpaid plans win some features, lose some

As of July 2016, all-three Celcom FIRST plans (Blue, Gold, and Platinum) have received a minor revision. Fortunately, the fees and even their monthly data allocations remain the same. The major change is that their amount of unused data that can be carried forward, have been cut in half. Just like the limited-time Celcom FIRST Basic 38 plan, those who were sold on this plan should’ve already subscribed to it, and if they did, they’ll be grandfathered in and won’t lose any of the earlier perks for the foreseeable future.

To keep things short, below are the revised plans, with the changes in parenthesis or in bold. FIRST Gold and Platinum now get unlimited use of WeChat and WhatsApp, but who are we kidding here? No matter how heavy a user you are on WhatsApp or WeChat, it is very difficult to even hit 100 MB a month, each. Celcom FIRST Gold also loses its unlimited SMS and to add salt to the wound, there is no free SMS allocation, and each text message will cost RM0.20. Good news is, all three plans now have unlimited WiFiPlus access, which is Celcom’s public WiFi hotspot.

New Celcom FIRST Blue

• RM45 per month
• 2 GB all-day data and 2 GB weekend data
• Data rollover of only 1 GB (down from 2 GB)
• 50 minutes, RM0.20 per minute afterwards
• 50 SMS, RM0.20 per SMS afterwards
• Unlimited WiFiPlus (used to be 2 GB only)
• Free Yonder Music for 6 months

New Celcom FIRST Gold

• RM 80 per month
• 5 GB all-day data and 5 GB weekend data
• Data rollover of only 2.5 GB (down from 5 GB)
• Unlimited calls
• No free SMS (used to offer unlimited SMS), RM0.20 per SMS
• Unlimited WiFiPlus (used to be 5 GB only)
• Free Yonder Music for 12 months
• Now offering unlimited WeChat and WhatsApp usages

New Celcom FIRST Platinum

• RM150 per month
• 9 GB all-day data and 9 GB weekend data
• Data rollover of only 4.5 GB (down from 9 GB)
• Unlimited calls
• Unlimited SMS
• Unlimited WiFiPlus (used to be 9 GB only)
• Free Yonder Music, Zipit Chat, and iflix for 12 months
• Now offering unlimited WeChat and WhatsApp usages

On the positive side, the supplementary plan for Celcom FIRST has gotten a boost, with twice the number of all-day data, matched with an equal amount of weekend data, at the same RM30 monthly commitment fee. It also now has the carry-forward data feature, previously missing from supplementary lines. The free minutes and SMS remain the same, but unfortunately, the pay-per-use rates are now RM0.05 higher than previous charges. FIRST Gold and Platinum supplementary lines also get the same unlimited WeChat and WhatsApp access as their principal lines. Another nice feature with FIRST 1+5 supplementary lines is that, by virtue of just having a supplementary line, both principal and supplementary lines will get 2,000 voice minutes and 2,000 SMS messages.

New Celcom FIRST 1+5 supplementary line (for Blue, Gold, and Platinum)

• RM30 per month
• 1 GB all-day data and 1 GB weekend data (used to be 500 MB only)
• Data rollover of 500 MB (not available previously)
• 50 minutes, RM0.20 per minute afterwards (was RM0.15 per minute)
• 50 SMS, RM0.20 per SMS afterwards (was RM0.15 per SMS)
• Free 2,000 minutes and 2,000 SMS for both principal and supplementary lines

Also, when the data is all used up, there is a ‘Max Up Internet’ booster that you can purchase for RM20 which’ll give you an additional 1 GB of data until the next billing cycle, plus a one-month access to the Yonder Music streaming service. However, as of this revision, Celcom has also introduced ‘Max Up Carry Forward’, which is exactly like the name describes. Too bad it is not a one-time purchase but rather, a monthly subscription — for RM10 per month, it lets you carry forward up to 1 GB of your Max Up Internet data allocation to the following month. Just remember to unsubscribe or opt out of the service when you no longer need it. You can find more details about this at any of the Celcom FIRST’s FAQ page (this one is from Celcom FIRST Blue’s FAQ page).

When Celcom decided to lower the price (from RM100 to RM80 per month) for its revamped Celcom FIRST Gold plan back early February 2016, the telco only promised to keep the lower price for two months, until March 31st. Due to its popular demand (at least according to Celcom), it extended the offer for another two months, until May 31st. In fact, during Celcom FIRST Platinum’s official launch, the company also said that some of the offers of this top-tier plan will also only be available until May 31st. Looks like the demands have been great, for Celcom quietly extended it for another month, until the end of June, until this new revision went live.