This is the experience of one of the airtel postpaid customers who had received a mail from Airtel CEO regarding a surprise offer.

Many people who got the mail also got a popup on 13th with an offer of 30GB spread across 3 months. I have two numbers and both of them did not get the offer. When contacted customer care (after many reminder mails), they said I need to manually send SURPRISE to 121 for one of the numbers (number 1) and for the second they were clueless and raised a complaint request (SR74729506). Complaint request will be resolved in 3 days as per them and so I will wait, but here I am going to comment about the first number. 

I sent an sms SURPRISE to 121 and I immediately got a mesage stating congratulations and the offer will be activated in 30 minutes. It is more than 24 hours and nothing has happened as per DATAUSE sms to 121 and the app screen. Looks like the interstellar time of 30 minutes for Airtel is greater than even 24 hours in earth and still counting. 

It is also interesting that the app screen data is not matching completely with the reply for DATAUSE sms. Attached is the screenshot of app screen home, sms details and app screen data page.Has Airtel Systems failed the Jio fever test? Or is it on purpose. I would have expected airtel customer care to at least reply back in time and say if I am not eligible for the offer. Will update on the other number request once their provided ETA is over. 

Final Status

Connection activated finally after some wait.