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

[dariovitale]

And the device manufacturers pay $10-20 cost per cell phone. 

[fixin]

@RetiredGuy1 - Agreed! If they remove something, add something. But New activations shouldn't be there in the first place. You will have more time getting a existing customer to be loyal than a new customer who isn't loyal at all and ports soon after.

[RetiredGuy1]

From that same commiittee hearing:

“Last November, Canadian wireless companies collectively spent about $2.1 billion on chunks of 5G bandwidth in the federal government's most recent spectrum auction. At the time, experts said the cost of spectrum incurred by the carriers could lead to higher mobile prices as companies recoup their investments.”

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Lets connect the dots: big investments in 5G infrastructure…PM launches Canada’s first 5G subscription phone service…and now that legacy rewards are retiring, the 4G plans are only available to new subscribers so existing legacy rewards subscribers on a 5G plan are forced to pay more for staying on their 5G plan (which Telus/PM wants) without the ability to essentially maintain their plan cost by downgrading to a 4G plan. As has been pointed out by many others, 3G plan subscribers are screwed the most as they’re on those plans for a reason (light users) and are now paying more for the same service. A brilliant business strategy but hardly an approach that promotes ethical conduct.

[RetiredGuy1]

A link to a news article with a bit more detail on the March 18 INDU meeting with the 3 telecom CEOs:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/telecom-ceos-committee-wireless-prices-1.7147718

Note that “Entwistle added the "missing" element of the conversation pertains to the cost of the physical cellphone itself, which he said can make up nearly half of an overall mobile bill. "That's an area where we do not control the economics," he said. ‘At the end of the day, those economics are determined by the device manufacturers."

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That would hold true for plans that include a phone but PM operates on a BYOD only model. Reading between the lines, is it possible the retirement of the legacy rewards was to raise revenue for Telus itself and not because PM itself was an unsustainable enterprise as has been suggested by some? If so, I guess its the fault of all those expensive phones from Apple, Samsung, Google, etc for the retirement of the legacy rewards.

[softech]

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@hkjhkj wrote:

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@Dunkman wrote:

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@hkjhkj wrote:

With the new point system, there is no longer any incentive to keep the auto-pay on, right? 

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@hkjhkj 

Correct, there is no longer incentive to keep on autopay since there is no monthly autopay rewards with the points system.  

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OK so the 250mb is now included in the $15 plan correct? I thought it used to be an auto-pay bonus before.

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@hkjhkj  it was supposed to be an autopay bonus for the $15 plan but for the longest time, PM has been giving the 250Mb for free with or without Autopay setup for the $15 plan.  But now, they make it simpler for all plans, there is no autopay setup required for that autopay bonus data, it is part of the plan now

[HALIMACS]

"Otherwise" simply meaning not permitting free comments ...  'moderating' them.

That's a question for them, not I. (but, they likely won't clarify ...  🤨)

[Calgarian]

It’s pathetic that Public Mobile, like most of Canada's teleco's, think they’re so clever with their ridiculous statements like “provide our subscribers with more ways to earn and spend rewards, with greater flexibility” as if they’re more intelligent than their customers. There's nothing more flexible than cash in my wallet. Just call it what it is: “We want to end your rewards by creating a point system that is decoupled from the dollar so that we can devalue the points. You will accrue points that we hope you forget about so that we can expire them.”

Instead customers still see through PM's scheming, while they word smith a dishonest insult to our intelligence. Way to go.

[Public_Cust_17]

@HALIMACS   "otherwise" meaning?? posts that aren't complimentary to PM... yeah, guilty of that but it'd be nice to know what was removed and for what reasons.  😕

[Skrenes]

Was there a change in management at PM recently? Did this person come from Bell or Rogers? What's with the sudden shift to screw over loyal customers by offering plans only available to new customers and eradicating anything resembling loyalty perks? I have four lines and this change is going to cost me nearly $250/year extra because I've been with PM for nearly 6.5 years -- and that's if I regularly waste my time signing in to use points.

I also may as well start looking at other offerings because I can just switch whenever I feel like it since there's absolutely zero perks to being a loyal customer.

[HALIMACS]

They are letting a lot more posts and comments stay on this thread then they normally would.  It's probably a balancing act of allowing free comments vs otherwise.

Yes, when a post gets relegated to the wasteland area for misfits, the associated metrics surrounding that post goes as well.

[Disgruntlednow]

This is a horrible move.  We have had my children with PM for several years.  This will double my daughter's bill.  We will be leaving over this.  You are no better than the other big players.

[Wolfcore]

From what I know, they've never really enforced this. I've never heard of a single verified person saying that their service has been canceled because of this. In my opinion, It's just something they write in their terms, in the event of severe cases of abuse. 

For what it's worse, freedom also has wifi calling, which is considered within Freedom's native service.

[fixin]

@hkjhkj - It is rare to see people who get kicked off of nationwide. The workaround is to use Wi-Fi calling whenever possible as it will act as in a Freedom Zone to avoid having no service.

But it is only after several months of not being in the Freedom Zone.

[Wolfcore]

Ahh, you're just referring to people porting their numbers in, fair enough. So around 15% of the population may not be able to port their numbers in. When we factor in the people who want to port their numbers in, versus people that are fine with a new number, this percentage will drop even lower. 

Regardless, the vast majority of Canadians will not have an issue. 

[kb_mv]

@Wolfcore  I think you are missing my point. This has nothing to do with their nationwide coverage. In order to port your number to Freedom you have to be in an area that they offer native service. This excludes large parts of the country. This excludes as I said, all of the Maritimes (approx 3 million), all of Manitoba (approx 1.5 million) all of Saskatchewan (approx 1.3 million) plus almost all of Alberta outside the 3 major city areas. I'm not debating whether or not they are a good company, nor am I saying their coverage including roaming is sub par, just pointing out that not everyone will be able to port their current number to Freedom and this is slightly more than a tiny percentage of the population.

[RetiredGuy1]

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@kb_mv wrote:

@fixin Wifi calling would be nice!

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@kb_mv Your post inspired me to come up with a follow-up to my karaoke opener of “Loyalty”. Going back to The Sound of Music (and with apologies to Julie Andrews), its early in development but I’m thinking:

All plans available, option yearly subscriptions

Allow Wifi calling and points by automation

No more surprises, so plans with no strings

These are a few of my favorite things

[Cheefster]

Dear Public Mobile. Please just call the forced switch of the legacy rewards to the new Public Points system what it is: Devaluing loyalty and reducing rewards. I've been with PM for 4 years on the $25/month plan, referred 6 people, so here's how the legacy Rewards system compares with the new points system:

	Legacy Rewards	New Points
Autopay	$2/month	5% ($1.25)/month
Loyalty	$4/month (4 years)	$0.83/month (10 points/12 months)
Refer-a-friend	$6/month	same
Helping others	same	same
Total	$12 off	$8.08 off

Worst of all, I now have to go in every month to spend my points, rather than having the money automatically taken off my bill. You gave me 30 GB of free data as "compensation", but it expires in 150 days, and I don't need anywhere near that much data.  Just call a "duck" a duck and stop trying to spin it.

[Wolfcore]

The people you're referring to are only a tiny percentage of the population, is what I'm saying. Just look at their coverage map with nationwide now. I believe we're talking about less than 1% of the population who may have some issues. Nationwide is almost included with all of their plans as well. Here are their coverage maps. We're talking about minor differences, and only in low-population areas. Also, when you're not in native, you're automatically placed on nationwide, and it's seamless. 

Freedom

Telus

[Public_Cust_17]

@saturna   yeah, the no data on the $99 plan would be a show stopper for me.. I don't need much and have managed to get by with the 250mb + a couple gb rewards to cover me but I still use some.  For my 80ish year old neighbour who only uses her phone to talk to people that would be an appropriate plan so I can see it working for some people.  🙂

[fixin]

@kb_mv - Yes, I hope so too!

[kb_mv]

@fixin Wifi calling would be nice!

[fixin]

@Wolfcore - One Redditor on the Public Mobile Subreddit said that they asked twice about Wi-Fi Calling. I have tried to confirm this with a CS_Agent without luck.

[ashishg1]

Well i just wanted to let PM know incase they monitor this thread.... instead of making money off of the loyalty discount you will be losing 3 lines worth of money instead. This has become more of a principle thing now. People should not continue to give you any loyalty if you dont care about the most loyal customers who have been with you for years.

[kb_mv]

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@Wolfcore wrote:

Let's be honest, Freedom will work for 99.9% of Canadians. They cover nearly every reasonably populated area in Canada. With their nationwide, they now use Rogers, Bell, and even Telus towers.

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@Wolfcore Freedom's native coverage is small meaning most Canadians (those outside the urban centres, most of western Canada, all of the maritimes) will be unable to keep (port) their number.

[Wolfcore]

I have a bunch of friends on Freedom, and some of them even say that they get better coverage than some of their friends do with rogers/bell in certain areas. Freedom also has wifi calling, so in the unlikely scenario you don't have service for whatever reason (but do have access to wifi), at least you're still okay. Last I checked, PM doesn't even have wifi calling yet.

[RetiredGuy1]

Plus, aside from the value those annual plans provide, there is the added convenience of paying your bill once and not thinking about it again for a year.

[JDBlue1966]

We have a Freedom store right by us. Will drop in this week. Will be nice to actually talk to someone. Plus the International stuff will be great. 

[Wolfcore]

Yeah, for the extra $20 a year, it's definitely far superior, and would make sense for more people. You also get more than 1gb of data per month.

The $99 plan makes more sense for older people who don't text or use data, or maybe people looking for backup lines.

[Wolfcore]

Let's be honest, Freedom will work for 99.9% of Canadians. They cover nearly every reasonably populated area in Canada. With their nationwide, they now use Rogers, Bell, and even Telus towers. Freedom isn't the same company that they used to be. There's a reason why PM considers freedom to be their main competitor. If Freedom had terrible service, PM wouldn't even bat an eye. They definitely wouldn't be following freedom's pricing trends, and wouldn't be constantly price-matching them, like they do now.

Now that Freedom is starting to have international plans, it's going to be a gamechanger. They now have a reasonably priced plan that roams in 81 countries, and I've been seeing a ton of people jump on it. Freedom is the reason for PM introducing all of these new plans lately, and will probably start working on international plans soon too (not just US). If Freedom were to just introduce their own proper reward system, they'd probably put PM out of business.

[saturna]

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@fixin wrote:

@sa7375 - Probably to not entice customers because the $15/month plan is $180 annually.

Freedom does seem like the #1 provider for annual plans, despite that they don't have the ability for all Canadians to have it yet for their MVNO service.

$99/year talk & text = $8.25/month.

$119/year talk, text, 15GB = $9.92/month.

$149/year talk, text, 30GB = $12.42/month.

Those plans are crazy cheap (If you live in the Freedom Coverage.)

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Just a word of caution: The $99 is incoming calls, outgoing calls and incoming text only. If you use tradional SMS (at 160 characters each) more than once a day average, you are better off with the $119 plan. The later is still <$10 for considerably more features than PM offers for $15...