PinaLove.com is a slightly outdated but perfectly functional Filipina dating site.
PinaLove.com
- Profile Detail
- Features
- Ease of Communication
- Usefulness - Free
- Usefulness - Paid
- User Base Size
- Value of Paid Membership
Summary
Pros:
PinaLove.com is a good choice if you're willing to pay a comparatively low price for membership in an active site. It's easy to use and has some nice features.
Cons:
It would be very slow to meet anyone if you don't upgrade your membership. The site has an old-fashioned appearance and some undesirable features like profile comments.
PinaLove has a large user base, so you’ve got a good chance of meeting a lot of potential partners there. Like any site that allows free users, there’s the potential for scammers, but if you know what to look for you can easily avoid this. PinaLove reminds me of the earliest of social mecdia sites. It could use a serious reboot, but it works if you’re patient. As the name suggests, PinaLove is a Filipina dating site, meaning it doesn’t have women from outside the Philippines. It’s not a free dating site, though. It’s possible to use it for free, but you have some serious limitations.
User Profiles
There’s not too much and not too little detail provided on the profiles page. Most of the details are standard for dating sites, but you can also helpfully see the minimum and maximum preferred age the user would like to meet. Some PinaLove reviews criticize the lack of detail, but it’s faster just to glance at the basics and get to know the person better by talking. The amount of text that can be added to the description seems to be unlimited. Unfortunately, it’s not required to fill out most of the details other than sex, location, height and weight. Many of the women on the site fail to fill out the details completely and write little or nothing in their description. This reduces the overall quality of the site because you want to know a little about the woman before you write to her. The way she writes her description says a lot about her, and her level of English. It’s preferable if a dating site requires users to write at least a few sentences, as well as whether or not they want children.
The photos are a high point of the site. Users can upload many photos, and the photos can be viewed full screen. It’s not required to upload a photo, but all the women seem to do so.
Communication
The messaging box is right at the top of the profile page, so it’s easy to send a quick message. You can send a photograph if a better one is requested or if you prefer not to post one publicly. A great feature is that you can see the messages you previously sent to a user right on their profile page, so you don’t run the risk of sending her a message more than once and getting accused of spamming.
A serious limitation to communication is that you can only send one message every 10 minutes unless you upgrade. That seriously slows down your ability to send messages, making the site all but useless to free users.
Searching and Usability
Even for free users, it’s easy to find the type of users you’re looking for. But free users can’t search by height, weight, education or if they have/want children. You can also limit the search to women who are online, and you can order the list by when they were last active, so you won’t waste your time messaging women who no longer use the site. The site is active enough and has new users sign up frequently enough that you’ll always have a lot of options.
One big problem is that you aren’t able to search by region, but only by major cities. This is a problem if you want to search not only in a major city but within an entire province. You can still meet women from any area by leaving the location box unselected, but if you want to meet women in a general region where you will be traveling, it makes it a lot more difficult. Another issue is that it doesn’t allow to filter by religion, which is important to some people and would help to make it a better option over sites like ChristianFilipina.com.
There is currently no FAQ page. The technical support page is a simple contact form and doesn’t seem to support a ticketing system. When I tried to send a text message, it didn’t work, but it had an alternative help email address below.
Additional Features
In addition to the usual dating site features, PinaLove adds a number of others, some of which we could do without. Your mailbox allows you to see messages sent and comments you’ve previously left. You can leave notes that only you can see on profiles. This is probably not very useful, but it helps if you need to remember something. A feature that probably needs to be removed in the profile comment system. I can’t see any purpose in allowing users to comment on another’s profile. The only possible advantage is that a user who has been scammed or had another bad experience can write about it as a warning to others, but the feature can be turned off so scammers are likely to do that. You can also block certain types of users from seeing your profile, block specific users, and turn off comments.
There is also an app for Android and the iPhone which allows you to do most of the same things you can do on the actual site. Through the app, you can also get a premium account for $19.99 per month, cheaper than the monthly plan on the website but without a long term discount. It’s not clear if a premium website account gives you access to the premium features on the app or vice versa.
Paid vs. Free Features
If you’re going to be seriously using this site to meet a lady, you’re going to want to upgrade. As mentioned, the site limits you to one message every ten minutes, making it almost useless. Upgrading also gives you more search options. Paid members also have the option of having their profile and messages appear above those of free users. Those are about the only real advantages to paid membership. Other paid features are the ability to create lists from the profiles you’ve liked, shown interest in, or commented on. You can make yourself appear to be offline to other users, and you’re able to see who viewed you or liked you and who read your messages.
Currently, upgrading with cost you $24.95 per month. Your best deal is with a 3-month plan at $49.95, saving you 33%. A 6-month plan costs $69.95, and a yearly plan costs $99.95. You get a better value the longer you sign up for, but if it takes you a year to meet someone you’re probably doing it wrong 🙂 Be warned that the first two options are recurring, so you’ll be charged again if you don’t cancel. Compared with the prices of other Filipina dating sites, PinaLove.com is cheap, especially considering the large number of user profiles you’ll have access to. However, there isn’t much to recommend it over free sites such as DateInAsia.com.
