Telecommunications firm Safaricom has introduced expiry dates on its Bonga Points loyalty program.

According to Safaricom, Bonga Points will be expiring after every three years. This now means that Bonga Points accumulated before 2019 will be expiring in January 2023.

Safaricom has termed the introduction of the expiry dates as a business decision that is meant to encourage redemption.

“Effective January 1, 2023, all Bonga points older than three years will expire and will be unavailable for redemption,” said Safaricom in updated terms and conditions for the loyalty programme,” said Safaricom.

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“Your Bonga points will also expire immediately in the event that your line has been deleted as a result of inactivity and in accordance with the terms and conditions for the use of the Safaricom services.”

The loyalty scheme, introduced in January 2007, gives subscribers one Bonga point for every Sh. 10 spent on the Safaricom network on voice, mobile data and SMS, and for every Sh. 100 spent on the network for M-Pesa transactions.

“Bonga points is a loyalty scheme that lets Safaricom Prepay and Postpay subscribers earn points immediately once registered to the programme. You earn 1 Bonga point for every Sh. 10 spent on voice calls, SMS, or data,” says Safaricom.

Safaricom awards four minutes of talk time for 50 Bonga points, graduating to 280 minutes for 4,000 points.

For those redeeming airtime, the redemption ratio ranges from Sh. 3 worth of airtime for 10 points, up to Sh. 600 worth of airtime for 2,000 points.

For SMS redemptions, the award ranges from 20 texts for 15 points, to 3,500 texts for 600 points, with expiry ranging from 24 hours to 30 days.

“Bonga Points can be redeemed for rewards ranging from Talk-time (Minutes), Data bundles, MMS and SMS bundles to merchandise redeemable at select retail outlets and at Lipa na MPESA Buy Goods till number and select Pay bill numbers countrywide, says Safaricom.