Waitrose email superstition?

[#1]

Someone I visited this morning has a Waitrose email address from a time when she used Waitrose dial-up Internet.  Now she shares broadband with her flatmate and thus is no longer with Waitrose.  But she still makes a dial-up connection to Waitrose every little while in the belief that this is necessary to keep her Waitrose email address alive.  Is this really necessary or is it superstition?   

[#2]

Hi there,
If she's paying for the account to stay open then there's no need for her to dial in - though there may be if it's a free account? I'd be surprised if that was the case though.

[#3]

My memory is getting a bit hazy now but I recall that a typical dial-up internet account was 'free'; you just paid for the phone calls and the ISP took the revenue.  Did Waitrose not work like that in those days?