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

[Public_Cust_17]

@Robbwell  I switched down to that plan a long time ago and when I did I paid an extra $5 for 500 minutes to use as a backup in case my outgoing minutes did exceed 100 minutes in a month. Incoming minutes are free on that plan so as long as you're good for accumulated data.. this plan can work quite easily for someone.  Cheers

[PCIrish]

I would agree with that thought, as well.  To me, that's the only rationale that makes sense of what they've done to "honour" their loyal subjects.

[wetcoaster]

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@Stelawrat wrote:

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@wetcoaster wrote:

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@Stelawrat wrote:

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@PrettyFly wrote:

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That's what I thought as well. I imagine that VoLTE whitelist isn't current & @PrettyFly's phone might actually be VoLTE accessible with PM. Highlighting for the powers that be at PM. 

Re: phones not listed on whitelists in general: this is a grey area for me, so I'm not advocating either way. I tend to follow the rules, 😐 so trying to bypass the norm, isn't something I'd be comfortable messing around with, not to mention, I'm not tech savvy enough to be messing around anyway! 😛 But I realize that there are lots of people, who are more than capable & @PrettyFly might be one of them, if they decide to remain with PM. 

Thank you @wetcoaster!  & a nod to @fixin   

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"Follow the rules"?? "Bypassing the norm"?? Wowza! So limiting your choice to 5 manufacturers and something like less than 3 dozen acceptable devices spanning three years or so, is great and should be the rule? Incidentially all whitelisted devices are/were upper mid-range pricing and up. So lets all follow the norm and make sure that nobody spends less than a four figure amount on their next phone? Preferably planned obsolatism is bricking those devices in 14-18 months too? 

PM is pure BYOD these days. Whitelisting is designed to keep afffordable phones from other manufacturers, or, heaven forbid, someone using an international version, away. It is anti-competitive behavior that IMHO is not ok at any provider but is outright ridiculous for a BYOD-only provider.

It should be really simple: If the phone has the proper technology (ie it's VoLTE capable) let it use it on the network (ie connect to VoLTE). Put a disclaimer on the compatibility list indicating that PM is not able to help troubleshoot problems on non-mainstream devices. 

[RetiredGuy1]

@JohnDoe3 

From my research online, the sustainabilty of the current PM business model is difficult to determine (if not impossible unless you’re a Telus insider) because Telus annual reports don’t breakdown financial data at the flanker brand levels. They’re all rolled up into Telus-level financial statements.

It is quite possible (or likely) that, at Telus’ level - PM was a loss leader strategy which has now served its purpose. Otherwise, why change the rewards model and force legacy subscribers to either pay more for the plan they already have or leave to a competitor? For the latter its quite apparent - they don’t care. 

Please understand - I’m not defending Telus whatsoever but just expressing what I believe may be their motive behind the changes. Given PM is a 3rd-tier, no-frills telecom, their clientele likely consists of a fair portion of those “working hard to join the middle class”. Unfortunately, today that group is usually the most to suffer when things change.

[hTideGnow]

HI @4mpersand 

this might be the page you are looking for

https://www.publicmobile.ca/en/bc/get-help/articles/move-to-public-points

[4mpersand]

I submitted a ticket. I still don’t understand why Public can’t make the contents of an email a public post on their website for ease of access given so many others are also missing key details regarding this transition. Whether or not people are in favour of the change, this is terrible customer service.

[G_Pomzz]

I received a response from CCTS with regards to my complaint against PM over losing my rewards and being forced to adopt the points system. The attached screenshot is actually PM's rebuttal to my complaint. Now I just wait & see if CCTS agrees with me or PM. I do not expect it to go in my favor. It's more about formally showing a disdain for their arbitrary changes. If PM has to answer to thousands of these complaints, they may "possibly" (but unlikely) as good corporate citizen, relent and let long term customers choose the rewards program they want. 

 

[JohnDoe3]

Just a thought... PM basically set the case for saying "it's viable to sustain a customer (no net loss) under the circumstances established through auto-pay and loyalty, ignoring potential for referral discounts".

Basically, under the old plan, as a customer, if I did absolutely nothing but set up auto-pay on the $15 plan (matched specs from CRTC) (also explains why every big-3 flanker had almost identical deals at the same time), then the defacto actual monthly price would settle at $15-2-5 = $8/month.

Given that it's demonstrably shown via the prior existence of the offer that such was a sustained package. Then why not have a ton of people petition the CRTC to drop the maximum on the same terms to $8/m, and cite the automatic terms provided by PM as the proof of concept that it's a sustainable model for the type of consumer categorized by the post-paid occasional user.

[Soon-ex-PM-user]

lol gift of free tap water storing in your own bucket. 

[hTideGnow]

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@4mpersand wrote:

Your linked FAQ says that everyone impacted by the change will have received an email by March 12th. I am on the old rewards program and have not received an email as of March 20th. When should I expect this to be resolved?

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HI @4mpersand 

you got any text instead?

but anyway, ask agent.  Please submit a ticket with CS Agent using this Chatbot link:  https://widget.telus.tiia.ai/publicmobile/publicmobile.html  Type the question "Submit ticket", Then click the following in order: "Contact Us" ,  "Other",  "Log In".  
If any issue with ticket submission, you can  submit by direct message:  
      https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437        

[Matty1234]

It's on the Freedom network so it doesn't work for everyone, if you live in a city then you're fine (I'm in Victoria so I'm covered), hopefully their 6 month beta pricing goes for another couple of months. 

[4mpersand]

Your linked FAQ says that everyone impacted by the change will have received an email by March 12th. I am on the old rewards program and have not received an email as of March 20th. When should I expect this to be resolved?

[hTideGnow]

HI @IanP 

the special migration data bonus only last 150 days

but those other bonus you accumulated from before would stay.

If you don't need to , don't downgrade the plan.  If you downgrade it, the special migration bonus will be gone (but those regular bonus you got from before will still be there0

[IanP]

I have an accumulated data of bonus , plan and bonus totaling 270gb.

I use 1 gb approx a month.

What to do with it?

[JDBlue1966]

Never heard of Fizz. I assume they are good? Do they include international text? Plus roaming etc…

[Matty1234]

I have a new plan for switching provider, I changed my next billing to the $15 plan (will be $8 after rewards) as I have approx 8gb of bonus data that I haven't used, guess I'll find if I lose the additional 240gb extra.

Was going to go straight to Fizz on my next renewal but can't really say no to an $8 bill for April, thanks Public Mobile. 

[maurelle]

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@eyes wrote:

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@Robbwell wrote:

If you now have too much data accumulated, consider downgrading your plan until you run out. There is a nice plan for $15 if you don't need many outgoing minutes.

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Be careful ..........if you downgrade your plan after receiving the free data you will lose it all. I haven't received my free data yet so  I have downgraded my plan realizing that I would not get the full data. Now I wonder if my free data would remain if at a later date I again upgrade my plan.

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Can't recall seeing real life reports, but the T&C only mentions "switching to a lower value plan", so if they do take it away upon upgrading, you'd have a solid base to ask for it back, I assume.

We have one account which will switch laterally ($34/40GB unlimited to $34/50GB unlimited) on renewal next week. We'll see if the 240GB drop off. Mind you, can't use it on these plans anyway, so what's the point, really?

[maurelle]

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@Robbwell wrote:

If you now have too much data accumulated, consider downgrading your plan until you run out. There is a nice plan for $15 if you don't need many outgoing minutes.

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Careful. As per T&C for the loyalty bonus data, and backed up by reports in the community, you'll lose the expiring data add-on (240GB on plans >$30, 30GB on >$20, 5GB on $15/$13 plans, I think?), if you downgrade after the add-on has been added to your account.

[hTideGnow]

HI @Robbwell 

it said on the FAQ, downgrading the plan will loss the migration bonus data 

[Robbwell]

If you now have too much data accumulated, consider downgrading your plan until you run out. There is a nice plan for $15 if you don't need many outgoing minutes.

[Cybershot]

I remember when I first got with PM there were people saying they had just gotten dropped out of the then rewards program due to some changes. Here we go again. Seems like a game they play. You are correct tho.  Lots of providers out there will gladly take my money. 

[hTideGnow]

HI @Slady 

but you won't loss your referrals, you will still get that

[Slady]

Paying less per moth for loyalty and referrals was the only reason I stayed with PM. I don't care about points nor I care how now I will have to login into my account and apply those to have some lesser rebate. Will def look elsewhere if PM cuts my current rebate.

[marcnoel]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I can't be bothered.  My plan will re-new shortly to the 50 GB again.  I can wait.

It is unfortunate that it seems, with some individuals working for the company, they forget that we are all human beings first.  How would they like to be on the receiving end of all this?  It has been said before that rules are made by men, and rules can be changed by men.

[Korth_]

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@hTideGnow wrote:

HI @Korth_ 

let's hope PM has some very good deals coming up

So, you have some friend referrals that still give you give discount  (Points) every month?

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I can't imagine Public Mobile (Telus) offering any new deals which will be compelling enough to keep me interested. Since the reason I'd leave would be their quiet treachery, their way of pulling the rug out before forcing the final shove towards their new business model. I'm interested in a reliable, predictable, trustworthy provider - and Public Mobile (Telus) now has enough ugly dirt on its face that it'll take a lot for them to impress me, to keep me around. I'm not interested in a provider which has a history of walking loyal customers into trap doors after dark.

My referrals all drifted away in recent years. The simple truth is that they could (and did) get better deals at other places, Public Mobile's referral system just wasn't good enough to keep them around. While Public Mobile's Rewards were enough to keep me around even without any Referral components - but the Rewards are going so I'll be going, too. It's likely I'll get referred somewhere else by one of my ex-referrals, lol, and it's equally likely that I'll get a better deal out of it there than I would get by sticking around here.

I'm interested in seeing where this is all going to go. It looks foregone, oh well ... but it's not utterly impossible that things'll get better since Public Mobile has surprised us with pleasant news before.

[RetiredGuy1]

@eyes I agree with you. I’ve posted more than once I’m not interested in the 3G plans and the example I used was comparing 5G to 4G plans. If your phone is not 5G enabled then switching from a 5G to a 4G is not a downgrade for that person

[RetiredGuy1]

@Korth_ 

From what I’ve read over the last 2 weeks, I wouldn’t necessarily describe the overall sentiment here as “angry” as thats a strong word. Venting “frustration” is more like it. The thread has gone off the rails at times but I attribute that to a handful of posters who I suspect have some history and are sniping at each other (I’m speculating as although I’m not a new subscriber, I am a new poster). The majority of the posts appear to me to be made with the intent to voice frustration, illustrate the heavy-handed approach being taken by PM, offering suggested compromises, and sharing info (ie pros and cons of competitor telecoms) for those considering leaving. I wish you all the best in whatever action you do decide to take. Cheers

[hTideGnow]

HI @marcnoel 

ask agent to apply a 5GB bonus for you, $15 plan will get 5GB.  We saw people supposed to get 240GB as well, and he downgraded to $15 before the bonus came and then he saw a 5GB added instead