For the longest time, I've always liked GetGo over Mabuhay Miles for various reasons. Mainly because you could redeem flights instantly online and from time to time GetGo would go on these crazy redemption promos like that time I booked a roundtrip flight to Tokyo for just 20 GetGo points.
GetGo and Robinsons Rewards have now merged into Go Rewards in what seems to be a strategic business decision amid the pandemic.
You will now earn Go Rewards points with a Peso value of ₱1 for every 1 Go Reward point.
Cebu Pacific earn rate
Classic, non-Go Rewards Visa Cardholders: Earn (1) rewards points for every ₱80 spend
Classic, Go Rewards Prepaid, and Debit Cardholders: Earn (1) rewards points for every ₱40 spend
Black and Cebu Pacific Gold and Platinum Credit Cardholders: Earn (1) rewards points for every ₱20 spend
The Marketplace and Shopwise earn rate
Earn (1) rewards points for every ₱250 spend
Robinsons Supermarket and Southstar Drug earn rate
Earn (1) rewards points for every ₱400 spend
Robinsons Department Store earn rate
Earn (1) rewards points for every ₱200 spend
There are other partners but these are the most common ones.
Cons
I'm going to start it off with cons since there seems to be more significance to the cons than the pros.
Fewer chances to book an amazing deal
As we all might know, Cebu Pacific is famous for its Piso Fare promos now and then. Since only a small amount of seats actually sell for ₱1, the website would often crash during midnight as everyone tries to grab a seat at that price.
Pricing is in tiers so after all seats at a certain price get sold out on a flight the price would gradually increase into the next tiers.
Now here is why there's less of a chance to book an amazing deal. Separate from the Piso fare sale that Cebu Pacific goes on, GetGo would have a redemption sale on their own where you could snag one way international flights for just 10 GetGo points!
It was a lot easier to grab a promo seat on GetGo compared to Cebu Pacific as fewer people actually take advantage of GetGo. Aside from that, the GetGo sales would go on sale on a different date from Cebu Pacific. Less competition to book.
Now that GetGo is no more and Go Rewards is a peso value reward system everyone will continue to rush and book on Cebu Pacific's Piso fare sales.
There were rumors before that only around 5 seats per flight actually get sold as Piso fare which is why it's so hard to come by. Although this rumor was never really confirmed.
Co-branded credit card downgrade
Cebu Pacific's GetGo credit cards got a major downgrade (imo). Instead of the ₱30 = 1 GetGo point, the new earn rate is now 1 Go Reward point for every ₱200 spend and ₱100 spend for Cebu Pacific spend.
As I previously mentioned, it's a lot harder to get promo fares on Cebu Pacific than on the GetGo website before. So the value you can actually get from GetGo was a lot higher.
Since the program now has a fixed peso value, the co-branded cards actually just get you a measly 0.5% cashback.
I've made the unfortunate mistake of grabbing the card right before the program change and will now most likely try to make a product change later this year.
The only good reason for keeping the card is that you'll earn more Go Reward points when you fly with Cebu Pacific.
Pros
Flexible reward redemption
Merging of the GetGo and Robinsons Rewards program gives you the option to redeem your Go Reward points from both Cebu Pacific and Robinsons partners, having options is always nice.
A more seamless way to book flights
The new program should make redeeming for flights easier once they get the systems intertwined and as of now, it's still in the works. In a sense, it will simplify the booking process, which means more bookings. Nobody wants to book on a complicated platform.
New co-branded card design
The co-branded credit cards got a design refresh with the GetGo removed and changed to Cebu Pacific as well as the eagle like like logo of the airline to replace the old design. It looks a lot cooler and more sleek.
Bottomline
Ultimately, I do believe this was a business decision to merge the two programs and save on operating costs for having two separate programs. Robinsons Rewards is also a much weaker program compared to GetGo so they might have tried to balance it out with the merger.
Hard to blame the decision to combine the programs as Cebu Pacific has continued to lose money because traveling abroad is still restricted or extremely difficult for Filipinos.
Unfortunately for us consumers we can't do anything about it and can only hope things get better as vaccinations continue.
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