Safaricom has announced the introduction of an expiry date on Bonga Points, its loyalty reward points. According to the company, the move is intended to encourage users to redeem their points.

You earn 1 Bonga point for every 10 Ksh spent on voice calls, SMS, or data. All unredeemed Bonga points will be expiring after three years. Bonga Points accumulated before December 31, 2019, will therefore expire effective January 1, 2023.

Increased redemption would unlock additional revenue for the telco as the value of unredeemed Bonga Points stood at Ksh4.5 billion as of March 2022. The figure has been steadily rising from Ksh3 billion in 2015.

In recent years, the telco has made it possible to do a lot more with your Bonga Points – including buying air tickets, phones and other goods. Here, Business Today lists our top 7 ways to use your Bonga Points before they expire;

1. Lipa na Bonga Points

Similar to Lipa na M-Pesa, Lipa na Bonga Points allows you to use the loyalty points to make purchases at any merchant using the ‘Buy Goods’ or ‘Pay Bill’ service to collect payments for their goods or services. You can access a Bonga Calculator on the *126* USSD menu to see how much your Bonga Points are worth in real cash for payments.

2. Free Phones, Tablets and Accessories

You can use your Bonga Points to purchase a range of smartphones, tablets and accessories at Safaricom shops across the country. Once you attempt to redeem your points on the USSD menu, you will be sent a password to present at any Safaricom shop where you will be able to see the options you have based on your unredeemed points.

3. Kenya Airways Tickets

Your next business trip or holiday, including this festive season, might be sorted as you can redeem your Bonga Points for Kenya Airways tickets to various destinations. The options are accessible on the USSD menu.

4. Data

You can redeem your Bonga points for data bundles. 100 Bonga points currently gets you 80MBs of data.

5. Minutes

You can redeem your Bonga points for minutes on voice calls. The expiring minutes packages include 100 minutes valid for 2 days for 300 Bonga Points.

6. SMS

You can redeem your Bonga points for text message bundles from Safaricom. 15 points gets you 20 SMS valid for 24 hours.

7. MMS

You can redeem your Bonga Points for free multi-media message (MMS) bundles, such as 2 MMS for 25 Bonga Points.

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