Cricket Wireless is set to discontinue its current rewards program which is simply called "Cricket Rewards." It will end on February 26th, 2018, at 5 pm EST and subscribers must use their accumulated rewards by that time. For all intents and purposes, the AT&T owned brand stopped accepting new members to its reward program on November 28th.
A Howard Forums member today noticed that there is a new app in the Google Play store called Cricket Ad It Up. According to the app's description "Ad It Up is a new app from Cricket Wireless that lets you lower your phone bill or receive cool gifts by viewing targeted ads on your lock screen."
This basically sounds like a spin on Amazon's Prime exclusive phone offers where brand name phones are sold at a big discount in exchange for allowing ads and offers to be shown on your phone's lock screen.
The app's description also says that you can "Indicate if you like an ad by swiping left or right on it, or tap to read more. Each time you unlock your phone and see an ad, you can earn points by swiping left or right on the ad. You can use these points for Cricket Bill Credits and other perks. View ads, earn points, save money. It’s that easy."
Cricket Ad It Up may have went live on November 28th or at least that's when it was last updated according to its listing in the app store. According to the app's FAQ it is in beta testing. There are only 1,000-5,000 current users and it has a rating of just 2.2 stars out of 5. The app has been developed for Cricket Wireless by a company called Adfone.
For now, Cricket's Add It Up is available exclusively on Android phones with Android 4.4 or higher installed. An end date for testing the Ad It Up rewards program has not been set, although it may very well be around the same time that the current Cricket Rewards program ends.
The Add It Up program looks like another offer that promises discounted or free service in exchange for giving up some privacy. It's more intrusive than the current Cricket Rewards program. Whether or not the program can be successful for Cricket Wireless, its advertising partners and customers remains to be seen.
Looks like the Ad It Up app has an end date of late April – not great news for an app that started public testing in late November. I have been trying to find the maximum rewards you can earn in a billing cycle, but so far I only see 2,500 points/day as the max and that means going through 500 ads to get the maximum bonus. I saw a comment elsewhere about needing 8,000 points to redeem (i.e., 1,600 ads later), but no word on how much that translates in savings. Think I will stick with Boost Dealz as a friend saved $20 by spending 1 – 2 hours a day over 10 days to max out the credit.