Safaricom Bonga points to expire in January 2023

In an effort to stimulate redemption and increase the underlying revenue, which stood at Sh4.5 billion as of March this year, Safaricom has added an expiry date to its loyalty program, widely known as Bonga Points.

All unredeemed Bonga points will now expire after three years, the listed telco has informed users, thus points acquired before December 31, 2019, would expire starting on January 1, 2023.

Once registered for the program, Bonga points’ subscribers from Safaricom Prepay and Post Pay can start earning points right away. For every 10 Ksh spend on voice calls, SMS, or data, you receive 1 Bonga point. The bigger the incentives are, the more you use your Safaricom line, the more points you get.
Safaricom described the decision to provide loyalty points an expiration date as a commercial move intended to promote redemption.

In spite of the company increasing the options for redemption to include the purchase of shares at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE), air time, phones, and even plane tickets, 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—and will continue to do so.

“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.

“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 points are recognised as a liability, or deferred income, in Safaricom’s books and are only booked as revenue upon redemption by customers either for airtime, SMS, merchandise or shopping.

Additionally, the business counts the money from churning SIM cards’ loyalty points.

The similar idea is applied by Safaricom to account for airtime sales. Customers who purchase prepaid airtime have that money retained as deferred income until they actually use it.

For every Sh10 spent on phone, mobile data, and SMS on the Safaricom network as well as for every Sh100 spent on the network for M-Pesa transactions, members receive one Bonga point under the loyalty program, which was introduced in January 2007.
Business clients can earn loyalty points when they meet their sales goals and redeem them when their revenue contracts with Safaricom are over.