Upcoming Changes to our Old Rewards Program

[J_PM]

Hey Community,

We have an important announcement to share with our subscribers who are currently enrolled in our old Rewards program.

We’re making changes to our rewards program and are sharing how these changes impact some of our subscribers. Starting in May, we’ll be retiring our old Rewards program and moving all subscribers to our Public Points™ program. 

We launched the Public Points™ program in January 2022 to provide our subscribers with more ways to earn and spend rewards, with greater flexibility. As part of our commitment to continuously evolve our products and services, it's time to retire our old Rewards program and shift our focus on enhancing our Points program.

To show our appreciation for your continued loyalty, subscribers on our old Rewards program will receive a special thank you. We'll send you a text message when it has been added to your account by March 31st. 

We’re excited to continue providing you, our valued subscribers, more opportunities to earn and spend rewards with Public Points™ moving forward.

To learn more about your move to Public Points, check out our FAQ here.

The Public Mobile Team

[dabr]

@hTideGnow   Lol...however, unlikely I'll be doing that.   In fact, this new policy is less of an incentive to bother spending all that time to get earn a CR, IMO..

[hTideGnow]

HI @golfball I think many would either don't remember or don't know how to redeem it and many points will be wasted, that's what to PM advantage.

of course, like any points program, people also accumulate a lot, then decide to leave one day and all those points are also wasted.  In the end, PM got the savings

[AveragePerson]

They're just spamming for the community rewards.

[MitchSmith]

I'm sure that them, like me, have not participated in the community after the switch to eversafe (and I mean, it's a phone service provider, not participating the community is to be expected.)

I had a much older community account where I did participate a bunch in the past. It's not 'hiding', it's just that we don't regularly participate in the community side of things, and now we're given a reason to. Do you also chat in your power company's forums? Your water service provider? This is the same to me, I have no reason to participate unless they give me a reason to, which they have.

[hTideGnow]

HI @dwh1 

i have to agreet the compensation is not enough

the expiring data is not useful for most of us

for people who have been using 250Mb or 1GB, they won't suddenly use more in the next 150 days to waste them. 

For people with lots or data or 5G plans, the extra won't be useful. 

[golfball]

I didn't even think of that. People who just use and never log in to their accounts and those less technically inclined won't even be able to use their points. The added friction of the points system will force those users to now pay full price.

[hTideGnow]

HI @Soon-ex-PM-user 

thanks.  I have no problem..

but I just find if you want to get your voice heard, use your real community name.  Like me, I replied and I let them know I am not happy.  I don't like to hide under a new account just opened couple hours aga.  

[dwh1]

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@ShawnC13 wrote:

@geogolem no, you have to manually convert it each time you receive 15 points

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This will be a significant pain point for those managing multiple accounts for children or other family members.  Yes, it does affect newer people who don't have legacy rewards - but the impact will be bigger on those legacy rewards users who didn't have this added manual step.

As I've said before in this thread - it's reasonable for them to go to a single rewards system instead of two, but this could be done so much better and could be done in a way that doesn't create this degree of unhappiness and anger.

[hTideGnow]

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@dabr wrote:

Wow PM... so to recap: no more loyalty/autopay rewards along with already discontinued non-expiring data.  This is, in effect, as mentioned by others, a price increase for existing customers. Thank you! /s.

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HI @dabr 

yes, end of an era

to get rewards, you have to start participate more on the community again

[geogolem]

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@ShawnC13 wrote:

@geogolem no, you have to manually convert it each time you receive 15 points

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thats what I thought.. which also sucks - they should allow us to specify some way to have them automatically redeem so that we can make it behave similar to the old rewards even if the monetary value of the new points system is less than the old system.

I have quite a few friend referrals and help many of those people with their public mobile accounts.. They will have a hard time logging in and redeeming the points -- so I will have to periodically help them once they accumulate points etc. It would be alot easier if I could set it up to just automatically happen...

[Samashin]

This restriction to not be able change the plan to a lower one to benefits from the "gift"  is the textbook definition of Tax on Poor. 
I just upgraded to a higher cost plan, because I could AFFORD it with my loyalty reduction. The EXACT day my new subscription passes, making the cancellation impossible, I get the message they're gonna remove the loyalty reduction as we currently know it. 
I feel like I've been frauded. This marketing campaign at 24$ just before was all planned to get 15$ customers to jump on something more expensive, that they could afford with the loyalty discount, and now they're slashing our discount now that they got us into paying more. 

[ShawnC13]

@geogolem no, you have to manually convert it each time you receive 15 points

[geogolem]

This sucks.. but I knew it was just a matter of time before it happened..

Having said that --> is there a way to make the public points automatically redeem for credit once your points balance reaches a certain threshold.. 

For example, I would love the ability to make my account automatically redeem 15 points for a 15$ credit whenever I acccumulate 15 points or more.... 

[Handy1]

@fixin  Yes very sad day for the community , I think those with a healthy amount of friend referrals will stay . But those without any friends rewards will have easier time jumping ship in the next best plan offering from the competition. Yes you still get  point reward but it pales in comparison . So with out friend referrals there’s nothing special about PM rewards from now on .

[AidenAlt]

Not defending PM here but I wouldn’t say you did it for free

you got rewards out of it up to this point

…..

this time around, PM will be able to get rid of legacy reward as they never promised to make it stay like the fall 2016 plan which they had to back track on

Vote with your wallet and move on if there are better deals out there after taking into consideration the points value and the lack of features mentioned around (no wifi calling, no international roaming, etc) 

I’m annoyed I will also lose my $7 rewards and get back the $2 ish instead but there isn’t any other $31 ish us/can plan available 

[ShawnC13]

@Handy1 there $5 legacy is gone so instead of $60 a year for people who have been here over 5 years, you get 10 points on your anniversary date no matter how long you have been here

[iamcdn79]

Under their forced migration to their new points system, I will be paying more now.

It looks like they're giving a big middle finger to the loyal customers who have been here for yrs and want them to leave for another carrier, well that's what I will be doing, gonna go to Freedom Mobile. 

[maurelle]

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@Dunkman wrote:

Another consideration:

From my understanding, with this 150 day bonus data, if you change plans (ie. to lower priced plan), the bonus data add on with be removed. 

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Which people on the $34/50GB Can/US plan will be unlikely to do, since they won't get their awsome plan back after the 150days.

Unless they'll be going somewhere else anyway I'd value the plan over the bonus data. And PM counts on that kind of thinking to get away as cheap as possible with this.

[Salvo1]

Been with you guys for a long time  don't change the discounts for the people that  have been with you for a long time   that's not verry nice !!! 

People are going to get verry upset of public mobile.  And will start to go some place else for service 

[fixin]

@Handy1 - I am not currently on the Legacy Rewards but, I bet Public Mobile is going to lose a lot of customers!

It’ll be sad to see the Legacy Rewards go.

[maurelle]

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@ma00 wrote:

Do you get 1 point for every month you are with Public Mobile or is it 1 point for every month a referred subscriber stays with Public Mobile?

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No, for your loyalty points, they'll credit 10 points to your points account once every 365 days.

Referall will be 1 point per person per plan cycle, as long as the referred person stays with PM.

[Handy1]

@dwh1  would you not feel penalized having to arbitrarily pay $7 more for your plan ? That’s why loyal customers upset PM not holding up to their end of the bargain for those of us that have been here from the beginning myself only 2018 . But not nice to have a price hike on your plan when you think you’re locked in . Maybe that’s what’s next take away legacy rewards and jack up everyone’s bill a further $5 for icing on the cake 

[Dunkman]

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@ma00 wrote:

Do you get 1 point for every month you are with Public Mobile or is it 1 point for every month a referred subscriber stays with Public Mobile?

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@ma00 

If you referred a friend to joint public mobile (by using your referral code), you will get 1 point/30 days as long as your friend stays with Public mobile.  

Each anniversary year with Public mobile, you will receive 10 points. 

[dabr]

Wow PM... so to recap: no more loyalty/autopay rewards along with already discontinued non-expiring data.  This is, in effect, as mentioned by others, a price increase for existing customers. Thank you! /s.

[ma00]

Do you get 1 point for every month you are with Public Mobile or is it 1 point for every month a referred subscriber stays with Public Mobile?

[R-M]

Congrats Public Mobile, you've finally made a decision bad enough for me to register a community account!

The legacy rewards were sufficient that I never felt the need to shop around for a better plan from anywhere else - I've just periodically switched to a better PM plan whenever I saw one for years. I will be now be regularly looking to competitors for a better deal.

No incentive for loyalty means you get none.

[Dunkman]

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@ma00 wrote:

So what does this mean for subscribers with the 15-dollar plan that has been reduced to the max with the auto deposit and pays $8/month which is a fortunate outcome due to the rising costs of everything? Is this going to jack up the prices to 15 and then you will have to collect points and spend them to reduce the price per bill?  

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@ma00 

Unfortunately, the $13 or $15 plan users will be hit the hardest.  5 year loyalty customers will lose about $7/month of credit including autopay $2/month.  Especially, in these tough economic times with higher inflations, low income customers will take a big hit.  

[Dunkman]

Another consideration:

From my understanding, with this 150 day bonus data, if you change plans (ie. to lower priced plan), the bonus data add on with be removed. 

[Slick66]

Legacy users have been doing their marketing for them for years.

Now that we're no longer needed or appreciated, we're being kicked to the curb.

How stupid of us to do all of that work for free.

[ma00]

So what does this mean for subscribers with the 15-dollar plan that has been reduced to the max with the auto deposit and pays $8/month which is a fortunate outcome due to the rising costs of everything? Is this going to jack up the prices to 15 and then you will have to collect points and spend them to reduce the price per bill?