Discovery Health - Vitality & Team Vitality plus everything else you need to know

[ridr]

I can't remember if it was mentioned yet - I moved my Discovery debit orders from my non-Discovery bank account across to my Discovery credit card after getting a note last week to do it - you just follow the prompts in the app under debit orders - they're giving 10000 miles per debit order (seems to be 1000miles per R1000) - got a nice surprise because I have a few debit orders and didn't realise it was going to be per debit order, just presumed it was a maximum 10000 total.

[Frosty]

I keep forgetting to ask them if I can change the date at the same time as moving. Does it give that option in the move?

[ridr]

13 hours ago, Frosty said:

I keep forgetting to ask them if I can change the date at the same time as moving. Does it give that option in the move?

I actually was also wondering about that - I didn't see an option to choose debit date.

[Frosty]

3 minutes ago, ridr said:

I actually was also wondering about that - I didn't see an option to choose debit date.

I sent a message last night after posting my message, and was surprised to get a response at 20:50 (didn't know they worked that late).

The debit order switch is only for the miles benefit and doesn't allow any changes. The date must be changed with each business unit.

[MORNE]

On 1/26/2022 at 3:55 PM, Frosty said:

From DCRainmaker:
snip

My decision
I'm getting the Polar because I have a non-Garmin head unit, but I also want the ability for the HRV functionality from the Polar.

OT: It's also 'well known' that the H10 is used by alot of companies as a reference device to calibrate their own devices....especially wrist wearables. I read a test that measured an h10 at 99.5% accuracy in cycling or something like that. With running they all drop a bit due to impact but it's still in the region of 93% ish if I recall. 

i've done a fitness assessment in a hospital before (TLDR: I have a compromised left lung due to a spontanious Hemopneumothorax when I was younger so I throw a red flag when it comes to life insurance etc lol), and they strap a polar to your chest in conjunction to all the other EKG stuff.  

good enough for me.

Edited January 28, 2022 by MORNE

[TheoG]

1 hour ago, MORNE said:

OT: It's also 'well known' that the H10 is used by alot of companies as a reference device to calibrate their own devices....especially wrist wearables. I read a test that measured an h10 at 99.5% accuracy in cycling or something like that. With running they all drop a bit due to impact but it's still in the region of 93% ish if I recall. 

i've done a fitness assessment in a hospital before (TLDR: I have a compromised left lung due to a spontanious Hemopneumothorax when I was younger so I throw a red flag when it comes to life insurance etc lol), and they strap a polar to your chest in conjunction to all the other EKG stuff.  

good enough for me.

Polar started out as pure HR monitors and then progressed into "sport units" not the other way around like most of the other brands or Garmin that came from a GPS background.

That's why I'm sticking to Polar.  Their devices are catching up slowly but surely and HR is/was always the best, just a pity there is no replacement for the V650.

[ChrisF]

1 hour ago, Frosty said:

I sent a message last night after posting my message, and was surprised to get a response at 20:50 (didn't know they worked that late).

The debit order switch is only for the miles benefit and doesn't allow any changes. The date must be changed with each business unit.

Would be interesting to hear how the "move" practically works.

 

2018 I moved debit orders from ABSA to FNB.  FNB documents states THEY do all the admin involved .... as soon as the process started I got an email stating that the Municpality, Telkom, Medical Aid and a couple of others dont accept these instructions from a bank, and I had to got to each to make the arrangements myself.  The process at each was actually very easy, but certainly not done by FNB.

[JJDT]

1 minute ago, TheoG said:

Polar started out as pure HR monitors and then progressed into "sport units" not the other way around like most of the other brands or Garmin that came from a GPS background.

That's why I'm sticking to Polar.  Their devices are catching up slowly but surely and HR is/was always the best, just a pity there is no replacement for the V650.

Agree with the comment towards Polar. I would love to see a more upgraded version of the V650. Currently it laggs in some feautures compared to their rivals, but for now it is working for me. The only gripe with the unit currently for me is the map plotting. If you are up here in GP and need to travel and you are out of the map range you need to update it. A global SA map would be fine.

It seems that Polar focus more on wearables these days.

[TheoG]

1 minute ago, JJDT said:

Agree with the comment towards Polar. I would love to see a more upgraded version of the V650. Currently it laggs in some feautures compared to their rivals, but for now it is working for me. The only gripe with the unit currently for me is the map plotting. If you are up here in GP and need to travel and you are out of the map range you need to update it. A global SA map would be fine.

It seems that Polar focus more on wearables these days.

I'm also still using my V650 and although it certainly does the job, its getting a bit long in the tooth now .  If it fails on me I'm going to be stumped for a bike computer since all my training data for years is in Polar Flow.  Would be nice if they could accept data from other brand devices also.

[Steven Knoetze (sk27)]

24 minutes ago, ChrisF said:

Would be interesting to hear how the "move" practically works.

 

2018 I moved debit orders from ABSA to FNB.  FNB documents states THEY do all the admin involved .... as soon as the process started I got an email stating that the Municpality, Telkom, Medical Aid and a couple of others dont accept these instructions from a bank, and I had to got to each to make the arrangements myself.  The process at each was actually very easy, but certainly not done by FNB.

I moved over to Discovery banking late last year and they did not "move" a thing.
I had to do it all with the individual companies.
This in itself was fascinating, Afrihost you just do it on the app, instant.
One of the others, it was like a 3 day process with multiple documents.
Not something I want to do again for another few years

[ChrisF]

8 minutes ago, Steven Knoetze (sk27) said:

I moved over to Discovery banking late last year and they did not "move" a thing.
I had to do it all with the individual companies.
This in itself was fascinating, Afrihost you just do it on the app, instant.
One of the others, it was like a 3 day process with multiple documents.
Not something I want to do again for another few years

 

At the time I was "not impressed" with FNB for presenting it that they will do the move .... just to drop it in my lap with the first email .....  Had I known the truth I may have opted to NOT move to FNB.

 

This could be a real issue for somebody that dont have the time to run between different suppliers.

 

 

EDIT - also speak to your medical aid broker .... we think of the debit orders.  But when the medical aid needs to re-imburse you, they need your new banking details.  Actually a lot of contacts that needs to be updated.

Edited January 28, 2022 by ChrisF

[Frosty]

1 hour ago, ChrisF said:

Would be interesting to hear how the "move" practically works.

 

2018 I moved debit orders from ABSA to FNB.  FNB documents states THEY do all the admin involved .... as soon as the process started I got an email stating that the Municpality, Telkom, Medical Aid and a couple of others dont accept these instructions from a bank, and I had to got to each to make the arrangements myself.  The process at each was actually very easy, but certainly not done by FNB.

In this case it is only the Insure, Health and Life debit orders that I need to move from my current bank to Discovery. Will see how it goes, but only after I change the debit order date from 28th of the month to the 2nd (I get paid on the last day of the month).

[M L]

Have anyone actually used the 50% discount on race entries recently?

https://www.discovery.co.za/vitality/team-vitality

 

interested to know whether it’s worth it. As with all things Discovery-loyalty, I would wager that it’s not. 
 

 

[Frosty]

Yes, I have (in 2016 - 2019).
I always got back about 50% more than the annual service fee, which made it worth it. I do those events anyway, so as long as I get more back, it's worth going for.

Now that it's only 50% (if signed up on/before 31/01/2022), it's worth it for half the number of races required. For me, Ride4Sight, Emperors Classic, 947 and Amashova would give me close to R800 back compared to the R495 sign up fee. Petty change, but the nett result funds my 947 entry.

[MORNE]

4 hours ago, M L said:

snip
 As with all things Discovery-loyalty, I would wager that it’s not. 
 

 

Lol, my wife was pregnant in 2020, during hard lockdown v1. With everything going on with reduced salaries etc, our discovery loyalty proved it was all worth it. We literally got 50% of our food spend back for every purchase. As in Spend R3k on healthy food, get R1.5k back a few days later…and that lasted for the 9 months she was pregnant + 6 months after the kid was born. To put it in perspective, even though medical covers delivery etc, that saving on the food alone would have been enough to pay for the birth cash.

100% worth it in the end. it has been mentioned on here but you cant half-ars it though…you use it to it’s fullest or you just dont have it in the first place. Use everything to get max benefit. If you are in it for ‘just free coffee’ then you are wasting your money. 

[M L]

15 hours ago, MORNE said:

Lol, my wife was pregnant in 2020, during hard lockdown v1. With everything going on with reduced salaries etc, our discovery loyalty proved it was all worth it. We literally got 50% of our food spend back for every purchase. As in Spend R3k on healthy food, get R1.5k back a few days later…and that lasted for the 9 months she was pregnant + 6 months after the kid was born. To put it in perspective, even though medical covers delivery etc, that saving on the food alone would have been enough to pay for the birth cash.

100% worth it in the end. it has been mentioned on here but you cant half-ars it though…you use it to it’s fullest or you just dont have it in the first place. Use everything to get max benefit. If you are in it for ‘just free coffee’ then you are wasting your money. 

Well done - glad to hear that. 
 

Yeah I think I agree. Either plan it and get to a proper tier and then use the stores in the system or don’t bother.