Safaricom puts expiry date on Bonga points
By Hilary KimuyuSafaricom subscribers will now have hours or days to use their Bonga loyalty points or lose them.
According to the new terms and conditions published by the telco, Bonga data bundles previously marked as having no expiry are now carrying a validity of seven days.
Data redemptions on the telco’s Bonga points USSD platform indicate that Bonga data purchases, which range from 80 MB to one gigabyte, expire effective midnight on the day of the purchase.
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Airtime and talk-time minutes’ redemptions have a validity period of seven days, while SMS redemptions have an expiry window of between 24 hours and 30 days, depending on the units redeemed.
“The data bundles purchased will be valid for seven (7) days after which any unused resources will expire and will no longer be available for use,” the telco’s terms and conditions on Bonga bundles state.
Safaricom said this was a business decision to encourage Bonga redemption, and customers will not be able to reinstate their expired points.
Bonga points is a loyalty scheme for all Safaricom prepaid and postpaid subscribers where they earn one point for every Sh10 spent on voice calls, short message service (SMS), data, and M-Pesa services.
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The value of outstanding or unredeemed points has been rising over the years, hitting Sh4.5 billion in March 2022 from Sh3 billion in 2015.
This is despite the company expanding the options for redemption to include merchant payments through its Lipa na M-Pesa and Paybill options and purchase of plane tickets.
However, the valuation of Bonga points has not been consistent over the years, with the worth of each loyalty point varying depending on the merchandise or non-merchandise items being redeemed.
Enterprise business customers also earn loyalty points upon achieving their revenue targets. The accumulated amounts are redeemable upon maturity of the revenue contracts set with Safaricom.
The points can be redeemed for rewards ranging from minutes of talk time, data bundles, MMSs, and SMS bundles or by payments made through Till and select Pay Bill numbers.
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