SSS Website Security

If you have an SSS account, you will notice that you have to change your password every now and then. For security purposes, they will require us to change the password every 90 days. Okay that's acceptable. Here are the two things that I find really stupid.

1. When you change password, they require the password to be at least 8 alphanumeric characters with at least 1 numeric character. Since I usually put special characters on my passwords for added complexity, I tried putting some and voila!

Why are you not allowing me to make my passwords harder to crack!

2. After successfully changing your passwords, you will receive an e-mail about it:

Dear Sir/Madam,

You have successfully updated your password.

You may now log-in to the SSS Website Member tab using the information below:
User ID: registered_user_id
Password: YOUR EFFING RAW PASSWORD

Should you encounter any problems accessing your account, please call the SSS Hotline at (632) 920-6446 to 55 (available 24 hours from Monday to Friday except during holidays) or email us at onlineserviceassistance@sss.gov.ph for assistance.

Thank you for using the SSS Website.

This is a system-generated e-mail. Please do not reply.

The f*ck is this SSS!?! You don't encrypt passwords you save on your database? Who the hell designed and developed this system? Ugh. No wonder our systems are so advanced.

Sun Life Additional Investment via BDO Bills Payment

Since August, you can already add subsequent investments to your Sun Life mutual funds through BDO Bills Payment (online and over-the-counter). Please see the published Sun Life guidelines here.

The good thing about this service is, if you're using online bills payment, you can set up a recurring payment to the mutual fund account of your choice. You don't need to enroll to the auto-invest option  and be tied to their schedule which is the 5th or the 20th of the month. Terminating the auto-investment is also easier as you don't have to fill out and submit forms. You can just stop the recurring payment.

Comparing this new service with their old way of adding investments (bank transfer to their BDO account then submit a screenshot of the transaction through Sun Link Online), I noticed the earliest period the funds can be transferred to your funds is 1 business day. If you use the old service and make it before the 12 noon cutoff, that day's NAVPS will be applied. 

Either way, both facilities are good as it gives us more ways to add investments. 

Happy investing!

GrabRewards Points to KrisFlyer Miles

Grab has recently added KrisFlyer to its list of GrabRewards partners. You can now convert GrabRewards points to KrisFlyer miles with the exchange rate depending on your tier.

Platinum members will be able to convert 11,000 GrabRewards points for 1,000 miles. Since it was just launched recently, there's an introductory double miles offer. Instead of 1,000 miles, you get 2,000 miles until October 31, 2017.

Gold, silver, and normal Grab users can exchange 12,000 GrabRewards points for 1,000 miles. The introductory offer is also applicable for these users.

I converted my points to miles and the transfer was fast. It's not instant, but it took them day. That's already good! 

Citi Thank You® Rewards Points to KrisFlyer Miles

I recently converted my Citi Thank You® points to KrisFlyer miles. The processing time is really fast. How fast? It got credited the following day! 

They mentioned in their website that the processing time usually takes up to 14 days: 

How long will it take for my ThankYou Points to post to my participating loyalty program member account after I request a transfer? 
For airline loyalty programs: It may take up to fourteen (14) days for the ThankYou Points to post to your participating airline loyalty program member accounts. 

 Good thing both Citibank and Singapore Airlines both have efficient processes.