REA VAYA POINTS
The Rea Vaya points offer major benefits to passengers.
THE REA VAYA POINTS
The Rea Vaya Points is a points-based system that will reflect and deduct points instead of cash on commuters Rea Vaya’s MasterCard-certified smartcards when validated on Rea Vaya’s buses and terminal gates. Rea Vaya points are used primarily for fare payment on Rea Vaya’s bus (and terminal) services and cannot be used for purchases at retail outlets. Rea Vaya has made it very attractive for commuters to move to the new points based system with the product, offering significant points bonuses of between 5% and 12.5%, depending on the amount of points bought in a single transaction. These points essentially translate into extra trips for commuters to travel for free.
In addition, Rea Vaya will be rolling out new vending machines at Rea Vaya bus stations in 2017. These vending machines are designed to provide an alternative to loading at the cashier’s booths. This can help especially at month-end when many people queue to reload their cards. The vending machines will take debits and credit cards and will give commuters the option of loading either cash or points onto their smartcards. Commuters will still be able to load points at the cashier booths at the Rea Vaya bus stations.
How the new points system works:
- With the new points system, fares remain distance based.
- One Rand buys you one point.
- Bonus points are awarded with point purchases of R51 and upwards.
- One Rea Vaya Go Easy point = R1.00.
The minimum amount that can be loaded:
The minimum amount that must be loaded onto a smartcard at any given time in order to utilise the bus service is R18.00 in cash or 18 points – which is the maximum fare on any Rea Vaya bus route. Where both cash and points are loaded onto a smartcard, the system will always first use points to pay for a fare before it uses cash. Where there are insufficient points to pay for a fare, the system will then use cash for the payment.
If points are used as fare payment on bus entry, the base (minimum) fare of R 9.00 (9 points) is always deducted, then the points will be used to pay for the balance of the fare upon exit, once the actual distance travelled has been calculated. The same applies to cash. If the system deducts cash on entry, it will deduct cash on exist. The system does not allow for cash to be used on entry and points to be used on exist, or vice versa. The minimum amount that must be loaded onto a smartcard at any given time in order to utilise the bus service is R18.00 in cash or 18 points – which is the maximum fare on any Rea Vaya bus route.
BENEFITS OF THE NEW POINTS SYSTEM
A great benefit of the new points system is that there is no loading fee charged to load points onto the card, this is applicable when you load points at the Reavaya stations. In addition there are discounts offered in the form of top-up bonuses as per the table below:
| Money loaded onto card | Percentage Bonus | Additional Bonus Value |
| R10 – R50 | 0% | 0 |
| R51 – R100 | 5% | From R2.60 – R5.00 |
| R101 – R200 | 7.5% | From R7.60 – R15.00 |
| R201 – R300 | 10% | From R20.10 – R30 |
| R301 – R700 | 12.5% | From R37.60 – R87.50 |
The table shows that if commuters top up their smartcards with any amount between R51 and R100, they get 5% additional points reflected on their cards. Therefore, if a commuter loads R100 in points onto his or her card, the card will load 105 points, equivalent to R105. If R300 is loaded onto the card, the commuter gets 10% worth of additional bonus points, which equates to R30 worth of points. The card will reflect 330 points that can then be used for Rea Vaya fares. These bonus points essentially translate into free trips on the Rea Vaya bus service.