Just received the following text from FreeUP.....
"Good day! We're notifying you that our Rewards program is ending on Sept 30, 2019. Your unused Reward dollars balance will be transferred to your mobile account by October 3, 2019. We apologize for any inconvenience. FreeUP Mobile"
Gotta love this stuff.lol
Whoever uttered the famous quote, "Change is inevitable," was a very wise and prescient person. Perhaps (s)he worked for or subscribed to an MVNO.
Did they say if anything was going to replace it? Are the "free" plans going away?
That is the entire text so all the info I have.
Copied from the FreeUP rewards page.
https://freeupmobile.com/rewardsFREEUP REWARDS
"WHY ARE YOU ENDING YOUR REWARDS PROGRAM?
Unfortunately, we are no longer able to continue our partnership with the Rewards program.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO MY REWARDS?
You current Rewards balance will be transferred to your mobile account and applied towards your monthly balance.
I NEED THE REWARDS BALANCE TO PAY MY BILL
We still offer our Free Plan and extremely competitive Global plans.
WILL YOU BE OFFERING THE REWARDS PROGRAM AGAIN IN THE FUTURE?
We do not currently have any plans to offer another Rewards program."
It sounds like our reward balances have been residing on Billaway's servers and, now that the relationship has been severed, the balances are being transferred to FreeUp's servers. I don't think it will have any discernable impact on what most of us are currently doing.
FU had for all intents and purposes ended the rewards program when the coupon option ended, for the other rewards avenues were pretty much useless. A change of name for FU might be in order since paying one's bill with earned rewards was integral to the "Free" part of the name. Perhaps "Global Mobile" would fit the bill. At least the free plan will stay for now, and some of us got 8 or 9 months or more of a paid plan for "free" via rewards. We'll have to see how going purely global works out for FU. Nice that our rewards will be able to be used until gone.
I'm disappointed but not too upset over the rewards. I was always willing to pay $10 for the unlimited text talk and a spits worth of data but if the $10 plan goes away and I have to get $15 I will probably look for some other options. Are there any other ATT MVNO that offer unlimited talk and text for $10?
Using the comparison tool on prepaidcompare.net, no one beats the $10 plan for unlimited talk/text on AT&T, even with autopay discount.
At the $15 level, PIx and Good2Go Mobile match the price on AT&T, with double the data (1gb instead of FreeUP's 500mb), but likely without the the global calling feature.
At the $20 level, Red Pocket beats FreeUp on cost, but requires 12-month purchase. Good2Go matches the cost, but with additional data (and likely without the global calling feature.)
FreeUP is still very competitive if you need unlimited talk/text on AT&T (and especially if you can make use of the global calling feature), and perhaps not that competitive if you need a lot less than unlimited t/t.
Funny! I guess they can't make up their minds cause I got this on the same day you are getting that...
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The rewards program is officially over:
Wow this shows you that when something new comes that is good. You have to pounce because it is a matter of time for all these products to fail.
This "Free" model in all it's forms are not sustainable.
Has this FU digital wallet offer been there all along, or is an exciting new way to earn that was hinted at in the past? 3% APY doesn't sound bad if one wants to trust FU's weird accounting practices or their partners. I think no way for me.
https://www.mykittmoney.com/store/x/default.aspx?page=wallethome&lang=en&pc=free&ti=0001
That has been there all along.
Just a possible heads up about renewal dates. Both of my plans just renewed, but it seems they renewed about a week earlier than they should have as far as I can tell. Although I neglected to take screenshots right before FU removed the rewards programs along with the records of the rewards which showed when credits were used to pay for the monthly charge, I still had a record of when my sims were purchased and activated a few days later as well as the sole one charge of .86 cents to my CC and was able to see that my accounts both were activated about the 27th and 28th of the month. So unless I'm missing something, I paid $15 of credits for only 3 weeks of service on both accounts. Anyone experience something similar? Given FU's history of wacko number flubbing, this may have just been a one-off event in my case. I'm glad I changed one plan to the free plan with the other plan soon to follow.
Isamorph writes: "Just a possible heads up...."
Our lines have similar renewal dates to yours (originally 29th, and 2nd), and I renewed them both (on the free plan) a few days ago. Everything looks fine so far with the expected dates, although neither account has reached the renewal date yet.
I did notice that the renewal option seemed available a few days earlier than I expected. I was only intending to look at the rewards balance, but got the popup immediately on accessing the dashboard.
Not the perfect comparison since I'm not on a paid plan.
I became perplexed because when I looked at my account summary a few days ago I thought it said the accounts next payments would be in 7 or 8 days (the accounts have renewal dates one day apart) yet one account renewed two days ago and the other yesterday. According to the below text the rewards program was supposed to end Sept. 30th but the rewards site was removed days ago(?) and "rewards" are no longer mentioned on FU's homepage. So unless a person on a paid plan, who had only paid with rewards credit, wrote down or remembers their renewal dates, there is no way to precisely find past renewal dates since the rewards site is no more. I guess I was lucky to have the one $.86 charge in my payment history.
"Good day! We're notifying you that our Rewards program is ending on Sept 30, 2019. Your unused Reward dollars balance will be transferred to your mobile account by October 3, 2019. We apologize for any inconvenience. FreeUP Mobile"
My dates.are.a few.days behind yours. I will look again in a few days,
Not much of a company with approximately 1 employee. Not sure what FU means they have teamed up with Kitt-Money.
https://www.manta.com/c/mhkrf2j/kittanning-communications-llc
http://www.buzzfile.com/business/Kittanning-Communications-LLC-210-354-4300
My renewals are working as normal. I am on the free plan though.