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.

Prestigious Credit Cards in the Philippines

I saw someone using a metal credit card a few days ago. It was my first time seeing one and got intrigued by it. I searched the internet and found out the guy is using a credit card from United Overseas Bank (UOB), a bank from Singapore.

Metal cards are the next tier of elite cards. Can we still call credit cards 'plastic'?

I checked online if there are metal cards in the Philippines but I couldn't find one. Don't fret though. There are other other cards that can be as exclusive as this for now. We will get our own metal cards soon I hope.

By exclusivity:

1. BDO World Elite™ MasterCard® - by invitation only

2. The Platinum Card® - by invitation only

3. HSBC Premier MasterCard® - must be an HSBC premier customer

By annual fee:

1.  Citi^® Prestige - 12,000

 

2.  The American Express® Gold Card - USD150 (around PHP7,500)

3.  Metrobank World MasterCard® - 6,000

Runners-up :

• The American Express® Platinum Credit Card - 5,000
• BPI Ayala Malls Amore Visa Platinum - 5,000
• BPI SkyMiles® Platnium MasterCard® - 5,000
• Citi® Platinum Visa - 5,000
• Citi^® PremierMiles Visa - 5,000
• HSBC Platinum Visa - 5,000
• Standard Chartered Priority Banking Visa Infinite - 5,000
• Cathay Pacific American Express® Elite Credit Card  - 5,000 
• American Express® Platinum Credit Card - 5,000
• BDO Diamond UnionPay - 5,000
• Metrobank Travel Platinum Visa - 5,000

Globe Mobile Internet Charging Scheme

During Globe's 3G internet infancy, they introduced two charging schemes - kb and time charging. Kb is the default, which costs PHP0.15 per kilobyte. Time charging on the other hand costs PHP5.00 per 15 minutes. I switched to time-based charging of course. I always text TIME to 1111 before I go online just to make sure I will be charged PHP5 for 15 minutes. When the bill came, I was shocked to see a PHP17k bill. What happened to my PHP1.5k credit limit? What happened to the time based charging I subscribed to?

To call their hotline and ask for reasons why I'm being charged  that much is such a painstaking ordeal. They cannot tell why I am charged per kb even though I'm on time-based charging. They told me they will escalate it to their technical department blah blah blah. After days of waiting, I didn't hear from them so I had to follow up. After calling them again, they still don't have updates blah blah blah. 

Two weeks has passed and I decided to go to a Globe business center. The Globe personnel said the same thing that I'm on time-based charging blah blah. They will escalate it to blah blah. I forgot what happened next but I remember Globe reversing the charges.

The following month, my bill is still in the thousands! I went back to the same business center and talked to the same staff. Luckily the guy remembered me. I told him I'm not stupid to switch to kb charging. Why did they introduce this stupid kb charging to begin with? To scam customers? Everything has been sorted out miraculously after a days. The charges were reversed and I'm finally charged PHP5 for 15 minutes!

Fast forward to 2016,  my internet usage suddenly got charged per MB!!! This effin charging scheme is PHP2 per mb (a reincarnate of PHP0.15 per kb). My phone plan is still the old plan and I'm not subscribed to any internet promos. Based on their website:

"If you're not subscribed to any Globe surfing promo, you will be charged P5 for 15 minutes. For a cheaper and worry-free browsing experience, Globe encourages you to subscribe to our surfing promos. Please click here to find the best surfing promo for you."

This is like 2011 again. Globe said I made a request to change to mb charging. But I didn't do anything! Then I remembered I requested for a SIM replacement. They must have changed it during that time. Sneaky paniki! But I also changed SIM card back in 2012 and it didn't affect the charging scheme. I had a hunch that something wrong will happen so I sent TIME to 1111. I'm not sure if the keyword is still valid but sent it anyway just to make sure that I'm on time-based charging.

After talking to Globe, they said I'm on both mb and time charging. How the fuck is that even possible? They won't even reverse the charges. Thank you Globe for not charging me more. You should have charged me additional 5 pesos per 15 minutes usage since my charging scheme is both mb and time.

I think I'm cursed. I'm so unlucky with our telcos. Or maybe they just really suck? Life is so miserable when these telcos are the only ones available. Don't make me start with PLDT. They deserve another blog entry.

FML.

Till my next bill!