Discovery Apple Watch Advice / Experience / Thoughts on the process

[fredriguez]

Carbies,

Looking for some advice.

I have a discovery hospital plan and vitality...

Getting an iphone 13pro max with my upgrade next month.

I bank with FNB.

Looking at getting an Apple watch 7 45mm gps+cellular.

I'm in a running club and do min 3 runs >6km per week.

Am considering signing up for a discovery credit card so I can get the apple watch through them.

I will prob have to pay an extra R3000 to upgrade from the 41mm gps only one they offer.

Im pretty responsible financially, so I don't have any anxiety about being given an extra credit card.

I have a few questions for anybody else who might have gone this route:

1 - What do their credit cards cost per month? (I cant find this info very easily)

2 - With the scaling of vitality points event difficulty, will my running club activities cover the point requirements?
(I should be able to answer this, but I cant. Using a Samsung Gear s3 frontier currently, but it doesn't track my activities or heart rate that well, where other people in my club and my team get 300 points for a run, I'm only getting 100 points, presumably because my heart info is being captured accurately enough)

3 - This seems like a clever path, because with enough exercise I could potentially get the base value off or a good discount for my activities, am I missing anything?

4 - Alternatively I could just sell my S20 ultra when I upgrade and buy one cash, but that seams like a wasted opportunity as I do already exercise often, also I want to try use that S20 ultra money to try upgrade my ipad air to an ipad pro

5 - Failing that I might just buy one through iStore over 1 year @ R1070pm

Shoot!

 

[goldfritter]

2 - With the scaling of vitality points event difficulty, will my running club activities cover the point requirements?
(I should be able to answer this, but I cant. Using a Samsung Gear s3 frontier currently, but it doesn't track my activities or heart rate that well, where other people in my club and my team get 300 points for a run, I'm only getting 100 points, presumably because my heart info is being captured accurately enough)

If you are getting less than 300 points for a 30min+ activity then you are either A) extremely fit or B) your tracker isn't tracking your heart rate accurately. If you do 30min+ at 80%+ of your theoretical max heart rate you get 300 points. For me a 30min+ run always hits the 80%+ threshold, although I am not very fit. Make sure you start and stop the activity accurately - if you let your HR drop after finishing the run that will bring your average HR down.

Your points target per week scales up as you improve up to a maximum of 900 points per week, so 3 x 300 point activities will always be good enough.

3 - This seems like a clever path, because with enough exercise I could potentially get the base value off or a good discount for my activities, am I missing anything?

If it still works the same as in the past: without being a Discovery bank client, you can get up to 75% cash back from the watch. Up to 25% upfront depending on if you did your health check, then for 24 months after you buy it, each month you will get a fraction of the rest of the amount back. If you meet your goal all the weeks in the month, you get the full amount back. If you miss one or two goals, you get 50% of that month's fraction. If you are perfect for 24 months it's a total of 50% back.

The last 25% comes from being a Discovery Bank client, not sure how that works.

I.e. if you spend 10 000 on the watch (just for illustration). When you buy it they will give you 2 500 back if you did all the health assessments. Then for 24 months, each month they will give you up to 208.33 back (if you meet all goals that month, you get 208.33. If you miss one or two, you get 104.17. If you miss more than two, you get 0).

That is how it used to work +/- 3 years ago.

 

[Confucius]

each month you will get a fraction of the rest of the amount back. If you meet your goal all the weeks in the month, you get the full amount back. If you miss one or two goals, you get 50% of that month's fraction

Did this change recently? With my watch, I didn’t pay anything upfront, except the activation fee and If I meet all my goals, I pay nothing back. If I don’t meet the goals, then I have to pay in.

With the IPhone, I had to pay the full amount upfront out of my budget facility and every month I get cash back based on my goals.

If you meet your goals and have vitality heath, the watch works out well. If you have drive and bank as well, the phone works out nicely as well. Without any of them, the phone cash back basically covers the interest.

I added my cheapy bakkie to the discovery Insure. Premium didn’t change much and I get the fuel rewards, less driving cash back and the additional weekly vitality spins… ends up being a lot cheaper and the phone is then 50% or so.

The Woolies and other cash back also adds up and I use the miles to get the 30% off on miles days.

So it works for me.

 

[goldfritter]

Did this change recently? With my watch, I didn’t pay anything upfront, except the activation fee and If I meet all my goals, I pay nothing back. If I don’t meet the goals, then I have to pay in.

With the IPhone, I had to pay the full amount upfront out of my budget facility and every month I get cash back based on my goals.

If you meet your goals and have vitality heath, the watch works out well. If you have drive and bank as well, the phone works out nicely as well. Without any of them, the phone cash back basically covers the interest.

I added my cheapy bakkie to the discovery Insure. Premium didn’t change much and I get the fuel rewards, less driving cash back and the additional weekly vitality spins… ends up being a lot cheaper and the phone is then 50% or so.

The Woolies and other cash back also adds up and I use the miles to get the 30% off on miles days.

So it works for me.

Might have changed then. Are you on bank as well as medical aid? I was on medical aid only.

 

[fredriguez]

@goldfritter Ja man, I'm quite sure this galaxy watch isnt reporting accurately. Our runs are about an hour long each... and I'm not very fit. I'm in the hatchling team for a reason, lol. We do have 3 or 4 regroups per run, but cumulatively I'm sure theres more than 30minutes above 80% heartrate. I mean, I ran 10km yesterday in 87 minutes, and I only got 100 points, so it can only be this galaxy watch.

@Confucius So I'm looking at getting the credit card. Do you know what the monthly card fee is on yours?

 

[Confucius]

Might have changed then. Are you on bank as well as medical aid? I was on medical aid only.

I’m just about to finish paying off my 3rd watch. Was initially just on medical aid but now I have bank and drive as well

 

[fredriguez]

I’m just about to finish paying off my 3rd watch. Was initially just on medical aid but now I have bank and drive as well

How do you meet your goals? Do you find it easy?

 

[Confucius]

@goldfritter Ja man, I'm quite sure this galaxy watch isnt reporting accurately. Our runs are about an hour long each... and I'm not very fit. I'm in the hatchling team for a reason, lol. We do have 3 or 4 regroups per run, but cumulatively I'm sure theres more than 30minutes above 80% heartrate. I mean, I ran 10km yesterday in 87 minutes, and I only got 100 points, so it can only be this galaxy watch.

@Confucius So I'm looking at getting the credit card. Do you know what the monthly card fee is on yours?

I’ve looked at my statement and it looks like my fees are R120 for the account fee, R30 credit card fee and R50 vitality money fee. So that’s R200 a month. I’m on the black card and I took it when they first launched. I’m not sure if you can still get just the card.

I see in this link they only talk about full packages

Banking Suite Fees | Comprehensive Benefits

Get the most out of a Discovery full banking suite that has the best value with comprehensive benefits and boosted rewards, all for a single monthly fee.

www.discovery.co.za

Regarding your workouts, it’s probably that your heart rate is not being tracked. For speed only workouts it defaults to 100 points I think. If it tracks your heart rate and if you are above 80%, it should be 300 points. You can check what’s being pulled on the discovery app. It should show you what you are getting points for.

 

[Confucius]

How do you meet your goals? Do you find it easy?

Over the past 2 years, it’s been pretty easy as goals dropped to 600 and that meant 2 weekly workouts. I’m not very fit these days and a 30 minute obitrek workout gets me 300 points. 😀

Prior to that it was 3 weekly workouts.