Talk:New Zealand/@comment-2607:FEA8:4DA0:3D74:451D:3A04:8AD1:35A0-20200202181715

I just returned from a week in New Zealand and used Skinny Mobile - they're $3 cheaper than Spark for the same level of service on a 28 day rollover plan. If you have a requirement to make international calls, Skinny also provides an extra 100 minutes over Spark (300 mins vs. 200 mins) for their $10 international calling add-on which allows for calls to a slew of major immigration source countries to NZ.

I searched for outlets selling Skinny SIM cards online - note that this isn't advertised very obviously in a lot of stores. I purchased the SIM card from the customer service desk at Countdown on Victoria Street in Auckland and had to buy top-up vouchers through the self-checkout since the Skinny app wouldn't recognize any of my overseas credit cards. Note to other users: if your payment method doesn't originate in Australia or New Zealand (or any of the other Pacific countries with payment cards tied to the major Aussie/Kiwi banks), you likely won't be able to top-up online and will have to go via the voucher route.

Your SIM will continue to be active for 12 months from the last date of any account activity. While this technically means that you could continue to top-up while overseas if you plan to return to NZ in the future and keep your number, if you don't have a local payment card, you are out of luck. The only workaround is to purchase vouchers before you leave and add them to your account AND cancel your plan to prevent it from renewing and using up your credit, but at maximum this will allow you keep your number for 12 months (since you can't purchase vouchers to top-up several months later as they expire).