Retaining my mobile number while abroad

[Kenh94]

I'm currently travelling outside of the UK for four months, having left at the start of Jan and requested to switch my contract to PAYG at time of departure. I did not realise I needed to use / activate my 'new' PAYG plan in the UK before going abroad. When I visited an EE shop to ask how best to approach this, they mentioned that I would need to use my number once every certain number of days to avoid it being recycled. Now I'm out of the UK, can't top up or even text 150, is there anything I can do to prevent this from happening, short of taking out a new monthly contract?

Really keen not to have to go through the process of getting a new number

[Christopher_G]

Hi @Kenh94 

Welcome to the community.

Did you use your phone in the UK to make a call or send a text message after you changed to pay as you go? That's what activates it for roaming abroad.

Chris

[Kenh94]

Unfortunately not, as I told when I spoke to EE support they it would take up to 30 days to switch, I only made the change a small number of days prior to leaving the country.