The telco says the program rewards customers with points based on their monthly spend or pre-paid recharge amount, and has three benefit tiers — member, silver and gold — “opening up a range of opportunities and offers for customers”.

Customers who enrol in Telstra Plus will use points to earn discounts on the latest technology, as well as receive entertainment and service rewards.

Telstra Group executive Consumer and Small Business, Michael Ackland, said the customer response since unveiling the program last month had been “overwhelmingly positive”, with over 370,000 members already signed up.

“Our customers are already ahead of the pack because they can access the best network on the latest technology and devices. With Telstra Plus, being a Telstra customer becomes even more rewarding with our members starting to accumulate points from today,” Ackland said.

“Members will soon be able to exchange their accumulated points for discounts on the latest technology devices and accessories when our redemption store opens in July.”

Telstra Plus members can view their points balance and membership tier in their accounts on the 24/7 app or at telstra.com, and the telco says customers who join before June 30 will have the opportunity to earn between 1,000 and 10,000 bonus points to kick-start their earning.

Telstra says it will start to roll out some Telstra Plus tier benefits to members from 28 May.

“Australians love their sport and entertainment and today we are announcing we will offer our Silver and Gold members Telstra TV Box office credits. For sports fans, we will be offering one or three month subscriptions to Kayo Basic,” Ackland said.

The new entertainment benefits will sit alongside the VIP service benefits offered through Telstra Platinum for Silver and Gold members.

Ackland said all Telstra Plus members will continue to have access to discount sport and movie tickets, pre-sale tickets, and money-can’t-buy experiences, as it rolls its long-running Telstra Thanks program into Telstra Plus.

To mark the Telstra Plus official launch, Telstra has announced it is hosting a game show day which all Telstra customers 18 years and over can enter – “just by having a Telstra mobile number”.

Telstra says Telstra Plus members have the chance to share in $50,000 worth of prizes and the opportunity to have a share of up to one million points.

Comedian and national radio host Tim Blackwell will open the launch show and draw the morning round, with TV personality Faustina “Fuzzy” Agolley and Australian favourite Cam Knight calling rounds and cracking jokes throughout the day until last spin at 8pm.

The competition will be livestreamed simultaneously across Facebook Live and Twitter.

Telstra says Lucky Numbers will kick off from 7am and run in rounds until 8:15pm, giving customers across the country multiple opportunities to “join the online fun and win prizes from key Telstra partners such as Samsung and Google”.

Ackland said Telstra was pleased to provide customers more opportunities to access the best in new technology.

“Telstra Plus is about saying thank you to our customers and represents just one of the ways that Telstra is providing our customers with product and experience improvements. We want to give customers and families around Australia simple and easy ways to access our products and services, and have access to technology sooner that can enhance their lives day to day.”

Ackland said the said the next milestone of Telstra’s T22 strategy was to come in June 2019, with the introduction of simplified mobile plans.