Safaricom gives it’s customers plenty of options when it comes to buying airtime or credit as most people like calling it. However there are times when you need to top up another number and likewise Safaricom has you covered thanks to their share airtime service (Sambaza) or buying airtime for another number using M-PESA.
Still there are situations when these two services may not be ideal, for instance when you don’t have cash in your M-PESA or when you don’t want to top up your own number first to Sambaza (e.g. if you’re on postpay, you’ve active premium subscriptions or you owe Safaricom airtime on their Okoa Jahazi service). In such situations what you need is an indirect top up.
Indirect top up is where you buy a scratch card voucher as usual but instead of topping up your number, it automatically recharges another number. Of course you can just SMS the receiver the serial number but this way it’s faster plus you won’t have to incur the SMS cost. You can do this indirect top up using either USSD or SMS.
Option1: Top up using USSD
1. In your dial pad key in the following code then press the Call button:
*141*[12-digit scratch card number]*[recipient number]# e.g. *141*012345678912*0722222222#
2. Both you and the recipient of the airtime should receive confirmation notification upon successful top-up.
Option 2: Top up using SMS
1. Open your SMS Messaging app and send a message with this format to 141:
[12-digit scratch card number]#[recipient number] e.g. 012345678912#0722222222
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| SMS Format |
2. Both you and the recipient of the airtime should receive confirmation SMS’s upon successful top-up.
