Get ₱50 When You Register to GCash

Sharing some love to you guys! Get ₱50 GCash to buy load, pay bills, and many more. Just use my referral code DWGP8Y when you register.

Download the app: iOS / Android

For more infrormation on GCash, click here.

Globe Rewards to SM Advantage Card/BDO Rewards Card

Photo from Google Play

If you read the reviews of Globe Rewards App at Google Play, you will notice that most of the people are dissatisfied with the app. I agree with some of the complaints, they kind of made it harder for people to redeem the rewards. Some people would prefer the old way of redeeming via SMS or USSD (*143#) since they don't have data most of the time. But I'm trying to understand Globe. They need to make this change or they will be stuck with old technology. Globe's phone apps are kinda sucky, I know. But I think they're slowly improving. Improving but very slowly. Slower than all the telcos overseas. But that's not the topic.

I downloaded the app, and tried registering. Everything went smoothly. Then when I was browsing for the rewards, it took me a while to see the reward that I always avail-bill rebates. The bill rebate now is minimum 500 points. I only have 300 points. Last time the minimum was 100. I didn't want to avail other rewards as I find it troublesome to show vouchers or SMS or whatever to their partners. The next easiest thing for me to redeem is SMAC. I tried with 130 points to test the water, and voila! It was credited to my BDO Rewards card instantly! 130 points is equivalent to 100 SMAC points by the way.

+1 for Globe on this one.

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!