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

[steveb11]

Add my voice to the chorus of protest over this decision. The irony for Public Mobile is they have now removed the biggest incentive to keeping their customers -- the fact that loyalty over time reduced the monthly payment. With the new points system, you can use up your points and then switch to another provider. Oh and by the way, Public Mobile, it's now March 9th and I haven't received my notification from you (which you said would happen by March 8th) about the upcoming changes. So you can't even get that right.

[Mikep3]

PM may still have some of the lowest cost plans. But not by much anymore. The old rewards were the only thing that made a big difference.

PM doesn't offer live tech support, actual stores. Value isn't just the price, it's the product and services.

It would be like Ford selling their cars for basically the same price but without engines and wondering why people might look at other brands.

[rodbe]

This is so disappointing and I will be considering my options with a different provider.  Another number within our household just received the same plan as I have here with Rogers for $40 per month.  The added value that comes with that now is the same I'd pay with PM.  I've been with PM for 5+ years and have always told others how great it was but now I'll be sharing a different experience.  Is it really worth the loss of such little revenue and not keep your long-term subscribers?  

[Mikep3]

I wouldn't be as mad if the new points system was better. They should have provided some recurring extra points for the old loyal customers. With the new points system they are basically the same price as everyone else. But as I said before this is unfair because they have no live tech support, brick and mortar stores and they require their customers to manage their account. There should be a discount for this.

[Xeno]

Very disappointed in this.  It feels like loyal customers are being forced to move to a worse program and the bonus that will be given is just bonus data that will expire.  The plan I am on is more then enough data for me, I only use at most 2gb of data a month so a special thank you gift of data means nothing.  Keep the loyal customers and keep the old rewards system for those who have it.

[joe77]

Maybe PM could give us access to their $24 or $29 plans that they are currently only offering to new subs.  That would help ease the hit on most of us that have $34+ plans with $7 or less loyalty rewards.

[ily]

People on the legacy rewards system that have been with PM for at least 5 years and have auto pay on are getting a $7 discount on their monthly bills. With this new point system, this will simply disappear. They will instead be accumulating points at a rate of 5% of their plan's full price, and can only redeem them for actual dollars when they hit 15 points in total. Extreme example would be: on the $15 plan, you've been paying $8. With points, you'll start paying the full $15, and collect $0.75 in points per month.

[Annelise]

What happened with the guarantee we could stay this way??

[eJonavin]

somehow deep down I knew this was coming. Public Mobile has been doing a slow purge of the core things that makes them great. 

I started noticing when PM stopped offering non-expiring add-ons. Then no annual bonuses, now just kill the great rewards program.

I feel like I’m no longer welcome here and have overstayed.

[dudesbot]

Our 5+ years of loyalty meant nothing to PM

Absolutely nothing!

Only the dollars and cents matter to them.

Very disappointed to have to look for new service. My PM email said the changes were starting "Starting May 2024". What's the chances they even honor this?

[EdN]

You wrote:

its unfortunate but predictable, the least they could do is give us access to the 24 dollar 4gig 4g plan. I guess there is nothing really motivating for people to stick around with public mobile, but I'm sure chat r and lucky mobile won't give us a compelling reason to switch, but you never know.  

...........

PC mobile for a $24 4gb 4G plan

[DanMan]

You will have referals only if they gonna stay with PM. If your referals decide to move you will end up with nothing 

[Bester30]

Very sad the old rewards are being discontinued. Losing $5-$7 a month is a big deal for a lot of people. Especially with the high cost of living these days. I really hope they change it back or add auto top up and loyalty bonus in the point system. Please do the right thing PM for your loyal customers.

[ryanwantstocomp]

I strongly disagree with this change. 

Mine, and my wife's bill will go up $4-5 a month each due to this change. 

When I signed up it was clearly stated that we can stay on the reward system unless we have an inactive account. My account has always been in good standing, and I feel like this is a slap to the face of my loyalty to your company. 

Please take this as my formal attempt to rectify the situation before a CCTS complain. If I don't hear from you within 5 business days, I will assume you have taken no action to rectify the situation. Thank you

[BradleyChow]

this is a terrible change.. looks like theres no reason to stay with PublicMobile now

[rob3344]

Wow Public mobile! What a way to thank me for my loyalty by reducing the loyalty reward by 83.4% (from $5 to $0.83)!

I used to recommend Public Mobile to everyone. Now it will be recommended as the network never to sign up with!

Will be porting out shortly.

[UltraHD]

Member since 2012...had my entire family on this .... looks like it's time to finally make the switch...Shame !  It was great while it lasted

[Korth_]

I just ordered a new SIM card from somewhere. And another from somewhere else.

To be ready to catch a good deal when I see it. I'll wait until May to see what happens. But somehow I expect there'll be a rush that I want to stay ahead of.

[Tilo]

I disagree with this change. 

My service bill will go up $4-5 a month due to this change. 

The advertising was clearly stating that we can stay on the reward system unless inactive account.

Please take this as my formal attempt to rectify the situation before a CCTS complain 

[mike7095sk1]

its unfortunate but predictable, the least they could do is give us access to the 24 dollar 4gig 4g plan. I guess there is nothing really motivating for people to stick around with public mobile, but I'm sure chat r and lucky mobile won't give us a compelling reason to switch, but you never know.  

[chra1n]

so disappointed. Why not give compensation that really means something? Didn’t even get a warning email

[Skaliger]

What a terrible decision to forcing your loyal customers switch towards the Point system... We all know that points are worse than the original Rewards scheme.

It was also mentioned previously, the old system will continue to work until your account is active. Now, PM changes rules and doesn't honor their words and loyal customers. Filing CCTS complaint is a good idea as PM's current move is like a backstabbing.

And if it won't work after all, the other providers would be glad to have my business. It was a good 5 year run.

[mc60]

Considering the barebones service, volte whitelist, and lack of wifi calling, slow and buggy site, trashing of add ons, and now trashing of rewards, the value has gone down significantly.

The rewards was pretty much the only thing keeping me with Public Mobile in light of the Volte whitelist (despite having compatible phone) and no wifi calling. My wife already jumped ship and is much happier with incoming calls not sporadically going to voicemail with no notification. VoLTE and WiFi calling doing its job. 

I manage several accounts under the old system, for personal use, family use, IoT use, android auto use, that are no longer cost effective, and several of them will be terminated.

The competitor's service does not whitelist volte, has wifi calling, and includes much more data than the $15 plan.

Dual sim is the way. Sucks that international eSIMs roaming into Canada for data can be cheaper than local.

[Anwbear]

That's horrible blow to loyal customers who were on the old system, many will have to pay more per month now. 

Hope PM is letting the old rewards System stay

[Soon-ex-PM-user]

Fair enough they can change the agreement if they wish. I really thought they are different from Bell or Rogers.

Also if they now can converting to points system then they can easily later on change the terms of its own current point system.  Instead of redeeming 1 point for $1 off,  it is 2 points for $1 off.  Or instead of 10 points reward annually, it is 5 points etc.

[SeniorCitizen]

Just keep in mind, everyone. 

I worked for a major retailer that had a fantastic loyalty program. 

What happens, a lot of loyal customers will accumulate them. Then the company sees that as a huge liability. So The first step is to dilute them by reducing their value. We did it AirMiles did it. BMO did it. 

Any loyalty program will never be good forever. 

And on the Telus points. I had no idea I had them. I contacted 5 friends and 3 of them had no idea either. 

My daughters never look at the bill or login to download it. Therefore not informed about points. They pay the number that they see on the email. 

[dannycdee]

Alternatively for low-budget customers like myself Freedom mobile has good deals for new customers. And they offer wifi-calling on all plans (something I need as I have terrible mobile network reception at home).

[fixin]

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@NotABot wrote:

Could someone explain how exactly the point based system can reduce the monthly fee as comparing to the legacy reward program that can reduce monthly plan of $15 down to $8 after accumulating all the rewards? The new point based program seems to only give points and not reducing the monthly fee automatically. So the user has to use the points to reduce the monthly fee manually? Otherwise, if the user forgot, then the regular fee stays and points get accumulated and eventually wiped out after 150 days? But if the user can still log in and manually use the points, it is still same low monthly bill as before?

The key is to reduce monthly payment automatically! Anything affecting this is a reduced service. I hope this forced point based program can be reversed and the legacy reward program can be grandfathered. Loyal customer can stay happy and introduce PM to new family members.

---

It ain't ideal if you already have the $2 autopay & the $1 refer-a-friend rewards.

You will have to accumulate 15 points to redeem them as credits towards your next bill.

The 240GB of free data has to be wiped within 150 days to get all of it worth. So you will need to use at least 1.6GB - 2GB of data (Not including your plan's data)

[SeniorCitizen]

Doesn’t PM have a catalogue of non PM products? I thought  it did. 
To me it makes most sense to deposit any reward $ value back in, to reduce your next bill. 

I will PM you. 

[Wolfcore]

I responded to somebody in a dm about this, so i'll just copy/paste it here:

Yup, I commented on that line in another post. As you can see, they're making contradictory statements, so it'll really be up to CCTS to decide. The same situation happened back in 2018, and due to enough complaints, they ended up reversing their decision based on that writing (and the outrage).

That line is also very vague, and due to the statement made before it, one could argue that they're referring to "changing" the reward system moving forward (but not removing what people have already earned previously). 

Regardless, it's the best evidence we have, and it's written on their own forum.