Lunar New Year Promotion: 5GB for 8 Months - Extended!

[J_PM]

Hey Community, 

Happy Lunar New Year! To celebrate, starting Wednesday, January 11, until February 7th, 2023, new customers can get an extra 5GB of bonus data for 8 months when they activate on select  plans with promo code: BONUS5FOR8

How to Get this Offer: 

• Visit our plans page here
• Offer available for $40, $50, $55 & $60 plans
• Activate online on select plans by February 7th, 2023 using the promo code to redeem this offer. 

This offer is available to new customers who activate online only. Rules and conditions may apply.

Offer Details: 

• Activate on any in-market plan $40 or higher using the promo code and get a 5GB data bonus for 8 months. 
• Please note it may take up to 2 business days for bonus data to be applied. 
• Bonus data will expire if the account becomes inactive or the rate plan is changed.
• This promotion is not stackable with other in-market offers.
• This offer is subject to change without notice.

How to Activate:

1. If you need to purchase a SIM card, click here to order a SIM card online through Public Mobile. Your SIM card will be shipped within 5 to 10 business days. 
2. Visit activate.publicmobile.ca to activate at home

To learn more about Public Mobile, click here.

- The Public Mobile Community

Spoiler

 **Offer Details / legal: Limited time offer. Offer available to new activations online.This offer is subject to change without notice. Activate on an in market $40 or more plan using the promo code and get a 5GB data bonus for 8 months. 5GB data bonus expires at the end of each 30 day period. Bonus data will expire if the account becomes inactive or the rate plan is changed.This promotion is not stackable with other in-market offers. Taxes are extra. The account must have sufficient funds to cover the total cost each month.

[dabr]

@John_Dobski   You are right and I didn't bother to read the fine print (spoiler) but took J_PM's post at face value from the mention of activating plans with $40/+.  I

'd say it's misleading not to mention that upfront and causes unnecessary confusion...

[dust2dust]

@John_Dobski- Just tried it, nope. Not sure the 15gb plan is a promo. It's been around for a little while now. Kind of false advertising to state which price of plans are eligible but then one of those price points is not eligible.

[computergeek541]

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@John_Dobski wrote:

Just to be clear, according to the fine print, the 5GB bonus can not be combined with the Lunar promo 40$/15gb plan?

---

The $40/15GB plan has never worked with any promo codes.

[John_Dobski]

Just to be clear, according to the fine print, the 5GB bonus can not be combined with the Lunar promo 40$/15gb plan?

[dabr]

@Bradoyo    How long ago did you activate your account?  The promo details mention that the bonus data can take upto 2 business days to be added to the account and also, hopefully, you also selected to activate with the $40/15GB plan and would then receive the bonus data on top of that for the next 8 months and not with the $40/5GB which is also currently available. 

However, if it's been more than 2 business days since activation and your bonus data still doesn't appear on your account's main page when logged into self serve account, then submit a ticket and customer support will be able to add the missing data to the account.  Here's a link to submit a ticket via chatbot:  https://www.publicmobile.ca/en/on/get-help

BTW, before doing that make sure you are logging into the account using incognito/private mode as there is a serious issue with caching on the self serve site and currently the site isn't showing up to date information even when using incognito or private mode so you may still be seeing old information even after refreshing the account.

edit:  clarification, $40/15GB plan not eligible for this offer.

[softech]

@Bradoyo   how long you have activated?  The extra data should be there within 2 days and it should appear in the My Promotions section.  Please login to My Account using Incognito mode to confirm

If you don't see the extra data in My Promotions section, please open ticket with PM Support:

Please open ticket with PM support using Chatbot:

1. Please open ticket via Chatbot (need access to My Account): At https://publicmobile.ca/chatbot.

Start by typing "Submit a ticket", then click "Contact Us", Then click "Other", then click "Click here to submit a ticket ↗" 

2. If you have trouble with Chatbot or you don't have access to My Account: Private message CS Agent at: 

    https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

**Monitor your Community inbox (envelope icon on the top right) after the ticket is opened.  CS Agent will reply to you there

[Bradoyo]

Used this promo code during new account sign up and I don’t see the +5 in my account. Where would I find where this was applied?

thanks

[dust2dust]

@MrsBlah- You are not reading correctly. You're overlooking the B. It's 5GB not 5G.

[computergeek541]

---

@MrsBlah wrote:

So am I reading correctly that 5G is available for new customers, but my options are limited to 4G? Or are the 4G offerings basically the same/will be upgraded to 5G?

---

Public Mobile customers cannot access the 5G network.  This promotion is about an extra 5GB of data. The network type doesn't change.

[MrsBlah]

Edit: Totally not reading it correctly. Should have taken a second look in the morning. Thanks to those who replied.

So am I reading correctly that 5G is available for new customers, but my options are limited to 4G? Or are the 4G offerings basically the same/will be upgraded to 5G?

[darlicious]

@kav2001c 

Puddin'?

[kav2001c]

---

@darlicious wrote:

@cgzhao 

Mobile providers are after one thing ....profit.

Huh and here I thought they were a charity

There are FAR worse offenders to society than cellcos

[darlicious]

@cgzhao 

Mobile providers are after one thing ....profit. Their current strategy is quite simple. With a review of the WCC and the CCTS this year along with the CRTC's new mandate they want to ensure they maintain their current monopoly of the telecommunications market in Canada in order to maintain their high profitability and continue to benefit from forbearance practiced by the CRTC. They do not want any additional regulation to interfere with their freedom to manipulate the marketplace on their terms.

The recent flurry of a variety of plans aimed at consumers subscribing to the middle and higher priced plans that offer mobile data buckets priced as low as $1/1gb achieves several very important goals for providers in Canada :

1. Artificially lowering the price per gigabyte of data to combat critics of the high price of mobile service plans in Canada. By offering large amounts of data to customers at the same price or incrementally $5 to $10 more per month than the federal governments 2020 baseline plan prices that they ordered providers to lower by 25% allows them to continue to make or increase the ARPU and satisfy the mandate set out for them by parliament.
2. Statistically achieving a significant drop in the overall average price of 1GB of mobile data to prevent regulatory controls from being instituted. Customers have been brainwashed into believing that their plan cost cannot be lowered and providers are given free will to raise prices outside of any contractual obligations with customers. By offering plans such as the $40/15gb plan in addition to the mainstay $40/5gb plan customers on the latter plan willingly switch plans to the $40/15gb because more for the same price is a good thing....right? It also migrates lower priced plan subscribers to a higher priced plan because for $5 more 15gb is better than 3gb?
3. The vast majority of subscribers migrated to larger data bucket plans don't even come close to using the data in their new plans. So not only can providers offer all of this data that costs them nothing the customers that they have maintained at the same price point or migrated to a higher price point increases their ARPU without increasing their net revenue expenditures.
4. At the same time customers on lower priced plans that cannot be migrated to higher priced plans see no increase in the value of their plans so that the high profitability of the price per gigabyte remains and with limited variety or pricing of lower cost plans customer churn rate remains low as the percentage cost of a new Sim card and possible activation fees makes switching providers for the same plan offerings a financially losing proposition for these customers.
5. As evidenced last spring the most basic of plans considered low usage/emergency plans used almost exclusively by vulnerable groups of customers that have the least amount of ARPU and simply cannot be voluntarily migrated to a higher priced plan were targeted with a 30% rate hike. This successfully achieved either a 30% or 50% increase in revenue from these customers with those seeing the substantial increase of features offered for $2 more than their newly increased plan price were pushed into migrating to a plan now 50% more than they were paying before.
6. While first tier customers paying on average $100/month for their plans saw no increase or even a decrease in plan price and/or were offered a discount significant increase in feature benefits. Mid priced plan subscribers experienced a 10 to 15% plan price increase but we're given double or triple their previous plan data amounts. Lower priced customers recieved no benefit and very lowest priced plan subscribers increased profitability the most by a grossly unfair 30 to 50%!!

Overall this results in the average cost of mobile data per gigabyte appearing be 50% cheaper while providers increase the ARPU by 10% while keeping operating costs and expenditures the same all while appearing that they are complying with a mandate to lower plan costs and increase plan offerings. A self-regulation slight of hand exhibition of non-competitive market forces.

[popping]

@Pawprints1986 

I manages 8 PM accounts for my family and all of them were activated 3 or 4 years ago.. 

-  4 of them are the grandfathered $10 50/50 plan(now $13). I can use data add-on my grandfathered 50/50 plan.

-  3 of them are the $15 plan with only 250MB slow 3G speed data.  This plan is still available at the moment.

-  1 of them is the new $40 15GB 4G plan.

The $25 1GB low speed plan is reasonable and is not cheap.  If you don't need the 1GB data, you can use the $15 250MB plan and the annual free data add-on + purchase additional data add-on.

[dabr]

@Pawprints1986    I think the non-expiring data (and mins) add-ons is what I really like about PM which Koodo also has and at one time Koodo used to have sales of double the data/mins (inc. US roaming data/mins which doesn't expire) for the same price although I'm not sure if Koodo still have these sales anymore or not.   So for the lower priced plans at PM, at least we have the option to add data as we need it rather than have it go unused on a plan with excess data.

[Pawprints1986]

"they all promote 40/50/60 G datas, which for most of the people a waste. "

This too. There's really not a whole lot for options for light users, it seems to go from too light or none, to a bunch of excess with not much options in between. Because most carriers also have the caveat that if your base plan has no data, you're not allowed to buy an add on. Or at least it was that way when I switched almost 3 years ago

[popping]

@cgzhao 

Currently, PM offers low price plan with slow data speed(3G speed) and high price price plan with high data speed(4G speed).  Customer can select the plan to suit their data requirement.

PM low priced plan with data speed capped to 3Mbps speed 3G plan to tailor to customers with low data usage.  Customer does not what the high speed data to eat up their low bandwidth plan quickly by touching the wrong link.

My son used over 5GB data every 30 days.  He was using the free data add-ons from the last 3 years after using all the plan data before 30 days. Switching to the $40 15GB 4G speed plan allows him flexibility with the same monthly payment.  He only used about 7 - 8GB data/30 days after switching to the new plan.  It is not a waste as he is speeding the same amount each 30 days and has the flexibility to use a bit more data.

[cgzhao]

marketing and profit is their goal, there is not much cheap data plans from all the carriers. they all promote 40/50/60 G datas, which for most of the people a waste. my family member has the 40 for 15G, it was barely used any data because of the wifi everywere. as a consumers we want to a cheap plans to suit our needs, but sellers thing different way, they need make more profit.' overall too expensive in canada which sucks

[computergeek541]

Unfortuantely, customers will view this promotion as very weak compared to recent offerings.

[Pawprints1986]

I find it amazing, in the industry overall, how they're basically willing to throw data at people for cheap or even free for a time now, but they don't reduce in market permanent plans with less or no data. Cheapest unlimited minutes plans are $25 and it comes with 1 gig on 3g speeds. Is talk and text really that much? Koodos cheapest post paid, also 3g is $35 and comes with 3 gigs, they don't even have the option for 1 gig. They do have a $32 with pay per use data with unlimited minutes though. That suggests talk and text alone with them costs $32. Maybe it does if you're actually on phone calls near 24/7 but how many does that apply to these days? Lol

I'm glad data is becoming more affordable overall, but why isn't talk and text ? 🤔 why aren't talk and text with unlimited minutes like $10 at this point? Myself I just switched to the 3g 3 gig plan, from the grandfathered 3g 2 gig plan (forget when that was, last year sometime? Maybe longer?) , both costing $30 so I figured why the hell not, but why not instead add a gig to the $25 3g plan? Or create a 4g 2 gig plan for $30 since there now is a 3g 3 gig $30 plan which is not a promo. 

This is meant more as observation than actual questions, I know it's about their bottom line - it's just interesting is all

[fujiyama]

Happy Lunar New Year! The bonus should be 8gb for extra lucky number 8s IMHO 😄

Also, with the better $40 plan still available this promo isn't that great... I hope this doesn't mark the end of that plan. 

[darlicious]

@J_PM 

It's linked to the plans page but not the Lunar New Year promotion page.

[J_PM]

@darlicious plans page now linked. Thank you. 

[toppy]

Happy Chinese New Year 

[popping]

Happy Chinese New Year of the Rabbit

[kaytus]

Happy Lunar New Year!

[darlicious]

@J_PM 

You do not have a working link in your announcement post to the web page to submit your email address to recieve the promocode.

[Handy1]

@J_PM @Happy lunar new year ! Thanks for the update 

[esjliv]

@J_PM  - Happy Lunar New Year!

Bring on the promos... 😁

[cgzhao]

nice, but no need $40 plan.