Chimwemwe from Airtel Zambia, How Happy Will You Be?

So again Airtel Zambia launched one of those promotions that you can only access in the middle of the night and called it ‘nights of Chimwemwe’. It runs from 11pm to 8 am and all you need to do is top up with atleast K2 and dial the usual *141# number to sign up.

The package includes 5 hours of call time and 500 SMSes but ONLY to other Airtel lines. This is where we give this promo the side eye. First of all, it’s late at night and anybody with a day job will most likely be asleep so they won’t even use up the promo package.

If there are insomniacs out there, their loved ones may be asleep and will not want to talk for hours so the insomniac will have to resort to other forms of entertainment.

As for the people with night jobs, they can only call or SMS people who are also doing a night shift as well or are to people who are sacrificing sleep but they are really supposed to be working rather than be on the phone so the promo still doesn’t get used up.

Younger people may use this as an opportunity to stay up and catch up with friends because they stay up longer than the work force in general but still, 5 whole hours? Nah!

Even though both require typing using the same keyboard, people prefer to text using social media compared to SMSing, simply for the fact that messenger apps have more features like emojis/smileys, media file sharing options and even voice calls/ notes. It seems very unlikely that all those 500 SMSes can be used up in one night.

Since we are speaking about messenger apps which obviously require an internet bundle, the promotion also offers 50MB of data and 50 more SMSes between 6 am and 8 am, the same time almost everybody is getting ready for work. If you can bath, eat and dress up fast enough, maybe you’ll be able to use up the freebies before 8 while on the bus or car to work (don’t drive and text though).

It’s great we keep getting all these “gifts” from Airtel Zambia but it’s the timing that’s off. The ads for this promo actually state “stay awake, endless talking, surfing, texting and surfing”.  At 2 in the morning?  Maybe that’s the point;  to give a gift but not let anybody use it so you can still save some of  it for yourself. Sounds like a mean move to us.

However if you actually do stay up that late and have people to call and text, go ahead and sign up for Nights of Chimwemwe with Airtel Zambia.