Telus-owned prepaid brand Public Mobile announced this week its legacy rewards program is coming to an end in May.
Customers are being informed of the change by text message and email by March 8, 2024. The text message reads, “Public Mobile here. We’re making changes to our rewards program and these changes impact you. Starting May 2024, we’ll be retiring our old Rewards program and moving all subscribers to our new Public Points program.”
Public Mobile also said it would be giving out a “special bonus” to legacy rewards customers. This bonus data has been revealed to be 240GB, but it expires in 150 days (just under five months). Update: 240GB is if you’re on a plan $29/month or higher; 50GB or 5GB is being doled out to those on lower cost plans.
Previously, any Public Mobile bonus perks had no expiry date. Public Mobile says this bonus data will be added to accounts by March 30, 2024, as long as accounts are active. Text message confirmations will be provided when data has been added to accounts. “Thank you for choosing Public Mobile,” said the message seen by iPhone in Canada.
Telus acquired Public Mobile back in October 2013. Later in the fall of 2016, a popular $120/12GB 90-day plan was launched that worked out to $38 per month with 4GB data after Autopay. Back then, that was one of the best deals for a 4GB plan (we’ve come a long way since then).
Public Mobile also had a new referral program that essentially resulted in early customers helping the company sign up friends and family. This program offered cash back that would reduce a customer’s bill due to referrals and loyalty ($1 off per month after year 1, $2 off per month after year 2 and so forth until $5 off per month in year 5). This meant a guaranteed $7 off per month for customers of five years, even without referrals.
But the switch over to the new Public Points program will eliminate the guaranteed $7 per month discount. Meaning these legacy customers will now pay more per month. Old referrals also generated $1 per month back each, and that will now switch to the points system where 1 point is worth $1. These points can be redeemed for $15 bill credits manually, but only when you accumulate 15 points. This forces users to manually apply bill credits, when the legacy rewards program would do it automatically.
The new Public Points program gives you 5% back in points from your monthly bill, plus 10 anniversary points per year. The old rewards program guaranteed $84 back per year for a 5-year customer. The new Public Points program will generate 5% back on your annual bill plus the 10 anniversary points. So that’s 20 points back if you were on the $34/50GB plan for example, plus your 10 anniversary points, totalling 30 points or $30. That’s a $54 difference compared to before.
A thread about the end of the old rewards program on the Public Mobile forums has exploded, with 637 replies from the community and counting, at 22 pages of replies. Even discussion on RFD has reached seven pages and other Reddit threads also have similar discussion on the matter. Many aren’t happy it seems.
“5 year customer. Will be leaving when this change takes effect. Shameful behavior by Public Mobile, hope they change course,” said one user. “And there it is. We’ve remained “loyal” to Public Mobile as a sort of “investment” into future savings. Which we’re now being denied,” said another.
“This is what happens when you people let BC TEL become privatized and then sit on your hands when Telus buys out the little guy Public Mobile. We need to switch to another Telecom brand that is independent of the big 3,” said another customer.
When Public Mobile tried to increase the price of the $120/12GB 90-day plan back in 2018, Telus reversed course as many customers complained to the CCTS, filing over 1,600 complaints in days.
What are Public Mobile customers doing right now, according to what you guys have told us? The angry ones are filing support tickets with Public Mobile first (a requirement prior to contacting the CCTS), then filling out the CCTS complaint form about what they feel is unfair.
Thanks Randy
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Telus lacks partnership from Skip,UBER & Doordash. Rogers is the best at providing Can-US plan for $30 in Quebec.
So tired of this only in Quebec nonsense.
I think Fido heard you. https://www.iphoneincanada.ca/2024/03/08/fido-expands-50-120gb-canada-us-promo-outside-quebec/
https://twitter.com/TELUSNews/status/1755928158119891006
In Q4 2023 @TELUS reports total Mobile and Fixed customer growth of 404,000, up 103,000 over last year, and our strongest fourth quarter on record.
I guess greed is a one way street!
A thread about the end of the old rewards program on the Public Mobile forums has exploded, with 637 replies from the community and counting – Now at 838 as of this post.
over 850 at 8:30pm, so over 200 more replies/comments in the PM forum, aside from 300 posts on Reddit and 250 posts (over 13 pages) on RFD.
240 GB bonus data for 150 days is ONLY for those with plans about $29 or more. For lesser plans, bonus data is only 50GB OR 5GB.
And for those getting the data but on an unlimited plan or a large monthly data bucket, it is useless. And if you try to change your monthly plan (say to lower your monthly bucket so you can take advantage of the bonus), you lose the bonus!
SAD!
If you have been saving your annual PM data gift you have to use that before you can use those gigs. They dont want you to have emergency gigs.
Basically a $7/month increase for a 5 year customer on the lower price plans. If you don’t have a lot of referral points no reason to stay with Public Mobile.
I was at the point where I was paying $9 going on $8. So I paid a $200 in advance. Never trust a corporation. So here is what I am doing. Got myself a free voip number at Fongo voip phone service. Texting at Fongo is $20 a year. So when my time is up at PM I will transfer my PM number to Fongo and (12 x$17.50 P/M) will go down to $20 a year and I will use wifi for calls.. Will at that point get a $5 a month Fongo home service account that dials Canada and the US.. And as for calling 911 -it is not necessary for a cellphone to have cell service to dial 911. My new home service will be better than I had PM. And Publice Mobile can go to hell. The got an extra $100 out of me but will never see another cent. Unfortunately no Freedom Mobile where I live in Atlantic. If something comes up like Freedom has with an annual fee of $120 and a only a few gigs per year I may change my mind. I have $200 still to burn up at PM.