Finding a SIM Card with a Kick in Chile

If you find yourself in Chile for a long vacation or business trip, sooner or later, you’ll need to hunt down a local SIM card. In Chile, they call a SIM card a “chip.” And no, it’s not a potato chip, though the price might make you think otherwise. I needed one as soon as I landed in Santiago.

My first stop was Movistar, one of the biggest national operators. I knew it from Spain, where they also boast an LTE network. But, as the locals tell it, LTE isn’t really a thing here yet. My visit was a disaster. Not only did no one speak a word of English, but you can’t buy a prepaid card or sign a contract without a local ID (called RUT). The other major operators, Claro and Entel, offer prepaid options, but mostly for voice calls, with very limited data packages. Unless you’re into plans that give you 100 minutes of calls to Mexico and 100MB of 3G data, you’re out of luck.

As someone who doesn’t use phones for calls—and who doesn’t own a smartphone—I was in a bit of a pickle. My iPad Mini is my computer, my phone, my everything. I needed a prepaid SIM with a good amount of data.

Enter Virgin Mobile — vMNO with a Rock ‘n’ Roll Spirit

Virgin Mobile, a vMNO (virtual mobile network operator) under Movistar in Chile, was my savior. Their office is on the 20th floor of a shiny high-rise in “Sanhattan”—Santiago’s financial district, cheekily named after Manhattan. The vibe there caught me off guard. Think tattoos, piercings, shorts, sneakers, and a guy casually playing guitar in the middle of the room. The black-and-red rock ‘n’ roll decor made the place feel more like a music venue than a phone carrier’s office.

Virgin Mobile is the first operator in Chile that offers fully-featured prepaid SIM cards. For data lovers like me, they offer 500MB, 1GB, or 2GB bundles for C$5,000, C$7,500, and C$12,000, respectively. Reloading, though, can be tricky without a local bank card or RUT. If you’re in my boat, you’ll need to top up at a pharmacy or grocery store using your phone number. I recommend keeping the little plastic card your SIM comes on and writing your number on it with a Sharpie for easy access.

On the bright side, Virgin has an English-speaking support team, which you’ll need to talk to when choosing a data bundle. Honestly, I’m not sure how the Virgin staff get any work done with that rock ‘n’ roll atmosphere and a killer view of the Andes.