Safaricom to put expiry date on Bonga points

Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa. [Wilberforce Okwiri, Standard]

Safaricom subscribers will lose any unused Bonga points obtained before December 2019 as the company moves to mop up over Sh4 billion in loyalty points.

This is according to a leaked draft copy of upcoming changes in the firm's terms and conditions for its Bonga points loyalty scheme that contributed Sh4.5 billion of the firm's liability stock in the last financial year.

"Effective January 1, 2023, all non-redeemable Bonga points older than three years (December 2019) will expire and will be unavailable for redemption," says the updated terms and conditions. "This is a permanent implementation where Bonga points accrued will now have a validity period to enable customers redeem points."

Safaricom said this was a business decision aimed at encouraging 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.

Enterprise business customers also earn loyalty points upon achievement of 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.