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Avoid Vitality Health Insurance! Used to be great but now appalling...

13 replies

sherbsy · 09/05/2025 15:20

My family are long-term Vitality healthcare insurance holders and while it's expensive, I have previously recommended it.

Over the past month however they have made some really weird alterations to their Rewards app - a way to reward policy holders based on their exercise.

We used to get 5 cinema tickets every month, a cafe Nero coffee every week and a couple of other perks like Itsu etc. Not anymore, apparently...

Instead of the exercise rewards system they now basically give you a weird dog scratch card game every week?! If you don't find enough "Stanleys" then you don't get your reward?! Even if you do find enough of these dogs then you still need to jump through various new rules, requirements and timeframe restrictions that were never there before.

I've tried to work out exactly what we need to do now to get our rewards (I've even asked their customer service and they couldn't tell me!)

Before April we just opened the app and it was all there. Now we need to...

  • Remember to sign in to 'play' some silly dog-themed scratch card game and find enough 'Stanleys'. Signed in too late? Tough, apparently Stanleys can't 'stay'.
  • Remember to pick a reward every month (or is it every week? I don't know).
  • Add up said Stanleys (remembering they don't roll-over every month).
  • Are the dogs the same as points that you earn through activity? No idea.
  • Redeem those dogs/points within a defined window against something in the Member Zone.
  • Remember that it works differently with the cinema tickets, coffees, itsu meals etc etc.

Basically, it's now a game of luck that nobody cares about or has time for and I cannot believe how badly thought out it is.

It's borderline fraud for a financial services company to introduce such restrictions mid-term in the agreement and I've lodges a formal complaint about it.

Have any MNers on here had similar issues?

OP posts:
AusBoundDD · 09/05/2025 15:39

Sounds absolutely batshit! I used to think that with all of the incentives (coffees etc) that Vitality looked attractive but I think I’ll stick with our Bupa policy 🙈

GreenApplesRedApplesYellowApples · 09/05/2025 15:45

Thanks for the heads up!

Hollietree · 09/05/2025 16:07

I’ve just had a look, thanks for the heads up. The changes are awful. I “won” 50% off one cinema ticket, but it has to be redeemed within 48 hours!! Completely useless. The only reason we have stuck with Vitality for so many years is the free perks for gaining weekly points.

Time to shop around for life insurance. I imagine they will lose a lot of customers over this.

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sherbsy · 09/05/2025 16:08

Hollietree · 09/05/2025 16:07

I’ve just had a look, thanks for the heads up. The changes are awful. I “won” 50% off one cinema ticket, but it has to be redeemed within 48 hours!! Completely useless. The only reason we have stuck with Vitality for so many years is the free perks for gaining weekly points.

Time to shop around for life insurance. I imagine they will lose a lot of customers over this.

Bingo - they've ruined it with loads of new and really inconvenient rules.

OP posts:
Steerclearofhate · 09/05/2025 16:08

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

BinBadger · 09/05/2025 16:16

Agreed.

I was really REALLY cross when I went to buy new trainers and found out that the long standing discount with Runners Need had switched to complicated sign in account with Online Sports Shoes instead. Can't try shoes on, can't get gait analysis, have to order online and pay p&p and then you can't do swaps but have to return and reorder paying postage each time. Couldn't order mine and my husband's at the same time as you can only use one code. So postage and packaging mounts up. After 2 returns I gave up as the discount was gobbled up in postage and still couldn't work out the right fit.

When it was Runners Need I went, tried them on, got advice and bought with a discount.

The cinema/game thing is beyond frustrating. I used to like earning enough for the family each month and being able to book online using the codes.

I could swallow the above if they were any good at their main offer but they were hopeless on the one occasion we tried to access their promised GP service - no appointments available. The one occasion I tried to have a private consultation the forms were so deliberately tricky I ended up having to pay instead.

Absolutely would not recommend.

afaloren · 09/05/2025 16:29

I know their perks have changed but just for a different perspective, DH and I have had four surgeries between us (one during the slightly more relaxed lockdown) and some talking therapies which all had massive waiting lists on the NHS and they paid for them all with no quibbles. So for medical stuff I think they’re good.

BinBadger · 09/05/2025 16:33

afaloren · 09/05/2025 16:29

I know their perks have changed but just for a different perspective, DH and I have had four surgeries between us (one during the slightly more relaxed lockdown) and some talking therapies which all had massive waiting lists on the NHS and they paid for them all with no quibbles. So for medical stuff I think they’re good.

I'm really glad they were good to you.

They really weren't for me, at all.

sherbsy · 09/05/2025 16:44

BinBadger · 09/05/2025 16:16

Agreed.

I was really REALLY cross when I went to buy new trainers and found out that the long standing discount with Runners Need had switched to complicated sign in account with Online Sports Shoes instead. Can't try shoes on, can't get gait analysis, have to order online and pay p&p and then you can't do swaps but have to return and reorder paying postage each time. Couldn't order mine and my husband's at the same time as you can only use one code. So postage and packaging mounts up. After 2 returns I gave up as the discount was gobbled up in postage and still couldn't work out the right fit.

When it was Runners Need I went, tried them on, got advice and bought with a discount.

The cinema/game thing is beyond frustrating. I used to like earning enough for the family each month and being able to book online using the codes.

I could swallow the above if they were any good at their main offer but they were hopeless on the one occasion we tried to access their promised GP service - no appointments available. The one occasion I tried to have a private consultation the forms were so deliberately tricky I ended up having to pay instead.

Absolutely would not recommend.

Edited

Hahaha, yes that was fantastic. They did the gait analysis test and everything. Now you need to order online and hope!

To be fair the replacement online shop does have a very wide range.

OP posts:
sherbsy · 09/05/2025 16:45

Hollietree · 09/05/2025 16:07

I’ve just had a look, thanks for the heads up. The changes are awful. I “won” 50% off one cinema ticket, but it has to be redeemed within 48 hours!! Completely useless. The only reason we have stuck with Vitality for so many years is the free perks for gaining weekly points.

Time to shop around for life insurance. I imagine they will lose a lot of customers over this.

It's ridiculous, isn't it?!

I bet someone there thought it was a great idea and pushed it all through, enormously underestimating just how many people are now absolutely furious!

OP posts:
afaloren · 09/05/2025 16:55

BinBadger · 09/05/2025 16:33

I'm really glad they were good to you.

They really weren't for me, at all.

Well that is shit and I’m sorry to hear that :(

BinBadger · 09/05/2025 17:10

sherbsy · 09/05/2025 16:44

Hahaha, yes that was fantastic. They did the gait analysis test and everything. Now you need to order online and hope!

To be fair the replacement online shop does have a very wide range.

It didn't have a huge range in my size and preferred styles though and your discount is limited to certain lines, and then you have to pay to return and swap. It's a very different offer to the original one.

BinBadger · 09/05/2025 17:11

afaloren · 09/05/2025 16:55

Well that is shit and I’m sorry to hear that :(

Thank you.

Being charged for an unapproved by Vitality procedure having been undertaken, while I was in stirrups and not in a position to check that the gynaecologist was doing exactly what he'd outlined on the claim form was pretty upsetting as you can imagine....

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