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

[Eddie16271]

This is disrespectful to your loyal customers. I'm switching the moment this change applies. How can you say "focus on enhancing our points program further for our subscribers". What a load of baloney!

[Abhishek8]

For a lot of us, the loyalty discount and auto subscription discount was the main reason for staying. Fizz looks like an interesting alternative, they have roll-over data for 2 months and more flexible plans.

[MikeyMcP1]

Well, the going rate for 20GB 4G plans is $29/month. As a long-time customer, I cannot get that with Public Moblie but new members can? Does that make any sense? I guess I will go somewhere else.

[CalvinW]

You already limit most promo plans to new customers already but guess that’s not enough. You just had to directly target your loyal customers. How does a carrier go down hill so fast? Guess Public Mobile will show you. Literally no reason to stay. I was already having a headache dealing with your lack of customer support. Peace out like all your old customers. 

[ShawnC13]

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@EdN wrote:

A 5% points back payment is based on how much you pay after your referral deduction etc.

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This is incorrect, as nothing is credited against your plan price at all.  So if you are on the $34 plan you get 1.7 points. 

[EdN]

A 5% points back payment is based on how much you pay after your referral deduction etc.

[mrsblondee]

I guess it was a matter of time before they forced this change. Was good while it lasted for those on legacy rewards.

[MikeyMcP1]

Another aggravating factor is that new Public Mobile members can get my plan at $5 cheaper a month. Why can't I get that price?

[mojorising]

@J_PM thanks for the 5 years of service. I'm getting my Lucky Mobile sim card tomorrow.

[ShawnC13]

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@Y4J259 wrote:

Am I correct in my understanding:

I will lose $50/yr from loyalty, and lose another $24/yr from auto-pay? This is another way of saying you are increasing my plan by $7/month, with no additional value? 

All my referrals will be collected as points, so you will make me log in EVERY SINGLE MONTH to convert my points to credit, and you intentionally will not allow this to happen automatically? 

The "gift" is a well-calculated joke. You know perfectly well that most users will not use that, especially users on the 50/75/100GB plans. 

The only "gift" would be for PM to have the option for legacy customers to move to a $27/mo 50GB CAN US plan. 

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@Y4J259 pretty much but the $2 autopay discount is offset by the 5% ppints back for plan price.  BUT you need to be a $40 price plan or higher to get equivalent points

[Zaros]

No wificalling, no international roam, no rollover, no international calls... Yeah, cancelling without old rewards. Loyalty discount and auto subscription discount were the only thing that made switching to other carriers not worth it.

[Amped]

Sounds about right!

[Soon-ex-PM-user]

what if your 3 referrals decide to leave?  Have you take this into account as your referral friends may also leave due to crappy new point reward system? 

If this is the case you may lose the $3 referral monthly completely

[MikeyMcP1]

Although I don't like it, I want to understand it. I have a $34 per 30-day plan.

So right now I am saving $4 (4 years loyalty) + $2 (auto-pay) + $3 (3 friend referrals) = $9 per 30 days.

Under the new plan:

$1.70 ($34 x 5%) + $0.83 ($10 per year / 12 months) + $3 (3 friend referrals) = $5.53

The difference is $3.47 per month or $41.60 per year. I also have to log in to actually use my points too.

Are my calculations correct?

FIZZ looking quite affordable...

[atonz]

Not impressed that PM is targeting loyal customers. I will return the favour and port out my family lines

[Lar1]

Thanks for the info on the yearly plan for Freedom Mobile

[danbeau]

Not good... I'm definitely going to consider moving elsewhere. I've been a PM happy & loyal customer for the last 4 years but not willing to pay $7 more per month. I think Fizz will be having lots of new customers.

[eJonavin]

Yearly plan is great. I have 3 of them now and will probably move my last line there. The reception has been good.

[eJonavin]

This is bad news.  I used to have 4 lines with PM. Now down to my last line. Now you don't even give me any reason to stay.  This is effectively a price hike.

[Trixxstrr]

Ya, definitely going to look at moving after this. I'm a $15 a month customer, so looking around I see Freedom Mobile has a yearly prepay for $120 a year with 15GB/year which would be cheaper ($10 a month) and I would have more data than I do here.

[MandyJS]

This feels scummy. You give us a "good deal" to convince us cheaper customers to pay more for our phone plans. We think hard about upgrading because it's quite a bit more than we'd already been spending, but the deal seems good with our discount. So we make the plunge and go for the more expensive plan and then right after, you take away our discounts, forcing us to pay even more than we'd budgeted for?

And then as a "thank you", your only compensation is a data add-on that will expire, when many of us upgraded to a higher data plan and will likely never use that "gift"?

I'm so glad they clearly value our loyalty.

Already "shopping around" to see what's available. No point being loyal to a company if they don't appreciate it.

[Lar1]

So now there really is no reason to stick around with PM since they don't value loyalty.  No more putting up with the chat bot for answers, no more time wasted.  No more telling people how good PM treated it's customers and trying to get them to convert.  Not just myself but family will now consider the options. 

[kyle12]

To enhance our rewards offering and ensure we’re providing the best possible value to our subscribers, we’re moving everyone on our old rewards program to the Public Points™ program.

Sounds like a BS reason, this whole change looks like a straight loss for the customers.

[Kristowhy]

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@dabr wrote:

@golffan    Do you really need an official comment/reason as to why that was eliminated before this announcement?  I'd say it's very obvious as to why it's been removed..

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Absolutely it's very clear why.  This entire legacy rewards move was done in bad faith.  I realize that PM/Telus is running a business, but there are better ways of implementing major impactful changes...many of which have been mentioned earlier in this thread.

PM seems to have adopted a "head in the sand" mentality and have created a less trustworthy and less customer friendly environment.  Remember how the data on's were quietly changed to expire after 30 days?

If this program can be retired at any time, so to can any plan.  What's next? 

[golffan]

Unless Im missing it, the option to convert loyalty months from old system to points in new system has been removed.  I would gladly switch to new system right now if I (and everyone else) could convert our loyalty months into points (which you could, up until Monday)

[Maddy1990]

This is really bad for us long term customers. I will be porting out as well when this change takes effect.

[Mayaa]

How is this enhancing the points program for me. I'll be in a worse off position after being forced onto the new rewards program.

[OSH2024]

My IP address takes care of over 10 legacy rewards accounts, many on $15, $24, or $25 plans.  And most will be looking to jump ship later this year, after I notify everybody of a bill increase of up to $7 extra, as a rude awakening. 

Some accounts will downgrade to the $15 plan and exhaust all special add-ons first, as we bide our time to move on to somewhere better - so as a prelude, your revenue gets reduced before the stampede to the exits.

It won't be hard to find a value plan in the same price range with competitors.  We can play the "No Loyalty" game too.

Congrats, PM!  

[Korth_]

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@golffan wrote:

@dabr  Obviously my post is tongue in cheek, the reason is obvious, I'm just posting to let people know, if someone were to willingly change to new rewards last week, they would have been able to convert their loyalty months into points...

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If you're worried about getting the most Points™ you can get by cashing in your Rewards ... just cash in your Rewards. The changeover to Points™ is not happening until May. Maybe you can get your "special thank you" on March 31st as well if you time things right.

[Edit: Last Sunday night, Public Mobile quietly removed the "1 point per month of loyalty" incentive they always gave out for switching from Rewards to Points™. If you voluntarily switch from Rewards to Points™ now then you won't get these Points™ anymore, you'll just get the 5 Point™ "Welcome Present". I didn't know Public Mobile had pulled the rug out from under us at the time I wrote the above advice.]

Personally, I'm going to holdout. Because maybe - maybe - Public Mobile (Telus) will reverse this decision after backlash. And because the Points™ are worthless to me. I don't care how many of them they give me because if I'm forced to take them then I'm leaving.