What order are add-ons used?

[moonmack]

I have a public mobile account from a flash sale with 2GB of data and unlimited minutes.  Actually it's 1GB of data, 500MB of autopay bonus data, and 500MB of data from the flash sale when I signed up.  I have also gotten some bonus data from the Holiday Give-away and a couple of others.  It says this month I've used more than 1.5GB of data (which pretty much never happens) but rather than using the 500 MB from the flash sale it's using the holiday bonus!  The flash sale resets every month where the bonus ones carry forward each month.  How do I get this to change so it doesn't use my roll over data?  Otherwise the 500MB flash data is useless unless I first use up all the promotions (and any other data I've bought, but I haven't bought any add-ons).  Please see the attached image.

Thanks

[darlicious]

@moonmack 

You should get your add on data reset. You may not need to every month but I would screenshot your data usage on your overview page on the night of your renewal before it resets at midnight eastern. Then if you only dip into your add on occasionally using less than 512mb in say 3 months you just ask for it to be reset after the third renewal with your screen shots as proof.

You will keep all promotional gifted add ons. Again the moderator is completely wrong in this regard as the 1000 min and 5gb add on were promo gifts to bc and alberta customers ( most but not all) in response to the entry of shaw mobility. There are no terms and conditions with them.

If the promotion on the right under "my promotions" is a bonus add on 99% of the time if you change plans you keep it. Even if it said otherwise in the terms and conditions this has been proven by myself and others countless times.

If its a bonus monthly plan data or discount you 99% of the time lose it if you change plans even if its the same priced plan but "new and improved". This has also proven to be true numerous times. There is only one member I know of that managed to buck that trend with a plan data promo from I believe Dec 1st or 4th 2019 for 1gb of reoccurring plan data by @mynewhome  or @newinone (maybe?) dang these two usernames are so similar I'm doubting my memory!!

So very wrong info by the moderator you would only lose as stated the monthly bonuses. You must have missed the "more the merrier" campaign somehow this past xmas but even still...on an average data usage per month of 500mb if you switched to the $15 plan/250mb and your add on fully restored your add on data would last you 28 months saving you $420 in plan costs.

You can trust me on that as I have downgraded both of my accounts and what you can't see is my 5gb add on RBC promo under my promotions that is still there and all of your gifted add ons are also in both of my accounts except the one created after the 1 GB DATA PROMO gifted to account holders in good standing on August 19th 2019.

[moonmack]

I haven’t used more than 1.5Gb since then.  Usually there is wifi available so I just don’t need much data.  I haven’t contacted a moderator again since the first one wasn’t that helpful, and the problem isn’t that bad for me in practice.  The answer they gave didn’t seem to make much sense, but I assume it is PM policy.

Typically I only need about 500Mb per month, but there was that one month when I needed about 1.8Gb.  The data used came from a free promo, and the amount of free available data seems to be growing faster than I use it.  So it’s not actually costing real money for me.

I could drop down to a cheaper plan, but I want the unlimited calling.  Dropping to the $25 plan doesn’t seem to be enough of a savings and occasionally I do use more data than the 1Gb on the $25 plan.

So in short, it’s still a problem but not enough for me to do something about.

The 1000 free long distance minutes just makes me smile since there is already unlimited calling.  I assume if I changed to the $15 plan I could use the calling.  A moderator stated that I would lose my promos if I change my plan but that doesn’t make much sense to me.  

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From what I've checked and confirm you have a 1.5 GB data plan for 35$ and my advice is to keep what you have until the moment you've consumed 1GB Promo/1 Go Promo, Free Holiday Giveaway 1GB Add-on and 5GB one-time data bonus and after that you can change to a plan with more data let's say the 35$ plan with 2.5 GB of data !:)

If you change your plan you will lose  the 5 GB data add-on and I don't advice you to do that! 😞

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from Nov 2020.

so I’ve just been sticking with what works for me.

[darlicious]

@moonmack 

Contact the moderators to reset your holiday data add on. Until they can fix the problem have them do this every month after renewal. If you want to preserve your add ons set your data warning at 1536mb and your limiter at 2048mb (or just under at 2000mb for discrepancies in time zones and between your phone's data tracker vs your account's data counter.)

This way you get to enjoy your bonus plan data until such time that they fix the glitch. A similar solution was implemented for a frequent visitor to the US with the $60 Canada/US roaming plan who had the opposite problem....his 10 day roaming add on he would purchase when his 2gb of roaming data would run out would get kicked to the back of the line once the plan renewed and therefore would remain untouched and expire.

[hTideGnow]

@moonmack , so, PM never "fix" the order and you are still got charged with the holiday bonus first before your flash sales data?  Or you just never try to test the water again?   I think you should open a new ticket to push it for a Senior to look into it.

[darlicious]

@moonmack 

At first I was thinking my minutes add on was random which data add ons can be but the add on being used is the oldest minutes add on that benefits me as a customer....the oldest being the holiday 400 minutes. That proves the moderator wrong. If you don't like the answer you are given always seek a second opinion! Great advice an oracle gave me when first joined the community. I will add a screenshot of my other account to prove my point data wise!

There is a 3gb promotional data add on they could easily add to your account as an apology once they fix the glitch. 

The first data add on added was the 1gb promo that has 48mb used then the 1gb holiday add on that data switched to....all the others were added after that with the 2gb holiday add on being last. A little more random as others have reported. But promotional plan data should always be used first.

[moonmack]

I wasn’t very happy with the moderator’s response.  The answer I was given implies that bonus data effectively replaces the additional monthly 500Mb instead of adding to it.  I’ve since kept my data use under 1.5Gb a month so it doesn’t use promo data, but it means the monthly flash bonus data is wasted every month.  So in that respect my plan effectively drops by 500Mb, as mentioned in the original post.

The situation would be different if I used all my data every month (including promos), but I don’t.

That’s interesting that the order of data bin used doesn’t seem predictable.  It definitely looks like a problem with Public Mobile’s system, but if a moderator doesn’t help you then where is left to turn to at PM?  

It looks like from your post that there is a similar problem with minutes.  

[darlicious]

@moonmack 

The moderator is wrong because my minutes are being used by a randomly chosen add on among all of the add ons I have not last added to first. Hopefully @J_PM  will contact you.

[darlicious]

@Luddite 

This is not a criticizm of your choice of solution but this is not a solution because the moderator is wrong! I am surprised that @moonmack accepted the moderators answer! Instead @computergeek541 is correct. This is a system glitch that should be addressed by pm and @J_PM should look into it on behalf of the OP. Since I don't recall this promotion there must not be many customers affected by it.

@esjliv 

Thanks for linking this thread!

Edit:

Oops I meant thank you @JK8 

[moonmack · Accepted solution]

So I received back from the Moderator:

The order of consumption is the following:

- the units included in the rate plan

- any one-time add-on activated on the account from the most recent to the oldest one (for example if you have one added in September and one added in October, it will be consumed the one from October first, because it's the most recent)

- any add-on that is renewing from month to month from the most recent activated to the oldest one

So if I read this correctly then my 2GB plan drops to a 1.5GB plan until all of the add-on data is used up.  Not exactly what I expected.

[Luddite approved 😎]

[computergeek541]

@moonmack Add-ons are always supposed to used in a way that is most beneficial to the customer. This means that one-time add-on packages always get used after all other data amounts.

As the wrong add-on is being used first (the oen that gets reset every 30 days should get used first), you'll need to open a ticket by going to: https://publicmobile.ca/chatbot