Use BPI ATM card and earn 1% rebate

Do you spend your hard-earned money wisely? Do you know that you can spend and save at the same time? That's what I call smart spending.

Well if you have a personal deposit or (in my case) payroll savings account ATM card with BPI / BPI Family / BPI Direct, then you can be a happy spender. No need to enroll as this is already part of the debit card feature. Just read on and I'll tell you more.

BPI uses Express Payment System (EPS) which allows debit cardholders to pay for purchases by swiping the ATM in the point-of-sales (POS) card terminal without having to withdraw cash.

What's in it for you?

• You can avoid the hassle of waiting on the line to withdraw cash from the ATM
• You will avoid risks associated with carrying a sum of money when you go shopping or buy your groceries
• It gives you an itemized breakdown on your bank statement to see where that penny goes
• And more importantly, (as this is what the post is about) BPI currently has an ongoing promo which allows you to get 1% rebate when you swipe that ATM to pay instead of cash.

Don't get me wrong here. I don't promote the idea of buying more than what you normally buy as necessary, just to earn rebate. My point here is to save and not to spend more.

Here's how the promo works (copied from BPI website):

1. The promo is open to all BPI, BPI Family Bank and BPI Direct ATM (E.P.S.) cardholders (Express Teller Blue, Express Teller Gold, Jumpstart, BPI Direct, BPInoy, BPI One Ayala and Ka-Negosyo).
2. Promo period is from January 1 to December 31, 2014.
3. To qualify, cardholder should use his/her BPI, BPI Family Bank or BPI Direct ATM card via Express Payment System (E.P.S.) within the promo period for a minimum single transaction of:
Transaction should be approved through a point-of-sale (POS) card terminal. Cash withdrawals through ATMs are NOT qualified to join the promo.



Scheme	Required Minimum Single Receipt Transaction	Period Coverage
All Day Rebate	Php2,000	Every day except every 1st, 2nd, 15th, 16th, 17th, 30th and 31st of the month
Pay Day Rebate	No minimum spend requirement	Every 1st, 2nd, 15th, 16th, 17th, 30th and 31st of the month

4. To redeem the 1% rebate, cardholder must confirm the E.P.S. transaction via SMS by sending IM ON EPSREBATE (space) Card Number*/ Transaction Date (MMDDYYYY)/ Transaction Amount to 2256 for all telecommunication networks. Cardholder will receive a SMS to confirm receipt of his/her redemption entry. Telecommunication charges will apply.
Example: IM ON EPSREBATE 5895591234567890 / 01012014 / 2,000.00 *Note: Card number as it appears on the face of the card. Transaction date and amount as it appears on the E.P.S. transaction receipt.


5. Rebate amount (transaction amount x 1%) will be credited to the cardholder’s account within 5 banking days from the SMS redemption entry date. Maximum rebate amount per transaction is Php 1,000. Cardholders who did not qualify for the rebate shall be notified via SMS.
   
Note: Rebate amount shall appear as “4360 Co. Credit” in cardholder’s statement of account.

6. Redemption period is from January 1, 2014 to March 1, 2015.
7. The rebate amount cannot be exchanged for other products or discounts.
8. Cardholders may contest his/her rebate redemption (i.e. incorrect rebate amount credited, uncredited rebate amount, disqualified E.P.S. transaction) up to March 31, 2015.
9. In case of dispute, the decision of BPI with the concurrence of DTI shall be considered final.
10. For BPI / BPI Family Bank Easy Saver accounts, transaction fees on all debit transactions, including E.P.S., still apply. Please refer to www.bpiexpressonline.com for complete list of service fees.
11. BPI is authorized to give necessary information to its third party contractor or agent to perform or complete the redemption process.

For more details, you can go to BPI website here: https://www.mybpimag.com

Are there any charges?

Except for Easy Savers account, there is no additional charge when you swipe your ATM (Express Teller Blue, Express Teller Gold, Jumpstart, BPI Direct, BPInoy, BPI One Ayala and Ka-Negosyo). For Easy Savers ATM, a minimal fee of P5 applies per transaction. You might want to consider switching if you don't want that P5 charge per transaction to pile up.

Now, let's say here's my spending in a month:

• P3,000 Groceries
x 0.01 Rebate
___________________
 P30 Total Rebate amount

Not bad. Can you imagine that? You're earning back after you spend! Why don't you use that ATM card to pay for what you usually pay for cash instead? Save while you spend.

If you want to learn more about their promos, you can visit their website https://www.mybpimag.com or call their 24 hour customer service number 89-100.

How to get rebate from Internet outage of Globe?

If you subscribed to Globe or other Telecommunication company's Internet connection products, you may be well aware of those painful days when your screen said the page cannot be displayed.
Have you ever been so pissed off while watching your favorite movie series and all of a sudden you lost connection to the Internet? Or maybe you can't wait to upload those cool selfies of yours on Facebook but you just can't do it? Or you're playing that online game of your life but you just had to stop? Oh no!!! It feels like it's the end of the world for you and you're too mad, your high blood pressure is skyrocketting. Well, you're not alone buddy. You're one of us who may have our own reasons why we act out when we can't connect to the world wide web.

Nowadays, many people treat internet with the same level of importance as electricity and water. It's now a way of life for most that they probably won't survive not being able to log on to Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Google and many others.

That's life! Outages happen (and irritatingly often in my case.) Telecommunication companies in the Philippines still have a long way to go to catch up with the best providers of the world.
Enough of the nagging though, did you know that you can get a rebate from this internet outage? Well at least I do get from Globe. Not that this will relieve your irritation or make up for the inconvenience, but at the least, you are getting that hard-earned money that is righfully yours. Why should you pay when you did not use the service to begin with? Who pays for going through a misery?

Here are the simple steps you can take to get that precious rebate. We will focus on Globe on this post.

1. Call the technical support of Globe at 730-1000 and report the issue. This has to be documented at their end because the rebate will be based on when you called to tell them of the ongoing issue.
There are two types of outages that I know of according to the agents I talked to --- Globe declared and isolated case.

For Globe declared outage, I was told that their system automatically generates rebate from the time it starts to when it gets restored.

Well my best advice is that regardless if it is Globe declared or isolated case, whenever you experience loss of connection, go ahead and make that phone call to let them know. The least thing you want to find out is that they won't acknowledge the rebate request just because you did not report it and it was not documented. Imagine having to go through the hassle and still pay for it? Well not for me.

2. The technical support will try to troubleshoot the problem over the phone but if you run out of luck and nothing seems to work, they will schedule an onsite visit by a technician (who won't really come over to my place at least in my case because within 1-3 days the issue gets resolved and the technician will just call me up to confirm if it's up and running.)

Keep the job order number the agent will give you at the end of the call and this will serve as an open ticket for the ongoing issue.

3. Once the issue is resolved, Globe will close the job order or the ticket. You then have to call Globe again and speak to customer service department this time. Advise the agent that you are requesting for a rebate from the outage and provide your job order number. The rebate they will process will be based from the date and time you reported the issue or when the ticket was opened, to the time it was closed. You may also want to ask how much adjustment you can expect to reflect on your next billing statement.