Apple Pay loyalty cards coming to more restaurants such as Quiznos & MOD Pizza
Thanks to behind-the-scenes work, a number of major U.S. restaurant chains like Quiznos, Smashburger, and MOD Pizza will start offering Apple Pay-connected loyalty cards "later this year," according to an announcement.
The development is a result of plans by cloud platform Punchh to add Apple Pay to its mobile app. The company handles marketing for over 85 chains, some other examples being Pielogy, El Pollo Loco, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, and Moe's Southwest Grill.
At supporting restaurants, iPhone owners will be prompted at checkout to add a chain's loyalty card to their iOS Wallet app. Apple Pay transactions should then automatically generate points and/or special offers, where supported.
The announcement may signal further expansion of Apple Pay as whole, since none of the above restaurants are highlighted on Apple's "Where to Use" page.
To encourage adoption of the platform, Apple is running an event in San Francisco this weekend which will offer bonuses and discounts for people shopping at certain stores. With iOS 11, coming this fall, people will be able to make person-to-person money transfers.
Spreading Apple Pay has a twofold benefit to Apple. On top of it encouraging people to use its hardware, the company earns a small fee from each transaction, which can translate into millions of dollars on a wide scale.
The development is a result of plans by cloud platform Punchh to add Apple Pay to its mobile app. The company handles marketing for over 85 chains, some other examples being Pielogy, El Pollo Loco, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, and Moe's Southwest Grill.
At supporting restaurants, iPhone owners will be prompted at checkout to add a chain's loyalty card to their iOS Wallet app. Apple Pay transactions should then automatically generate points and/or special offers, where supported.
The announcement may signal further expansion of Apple Pay as whole, since none of the above restaurants are highlighted on Apple's "Where to Use" page.
To encourage adoption of the platform, Apple is running an event in San Francisco this weekend which will offer bonuses and discounts for people shopping at certain stores. With iOS 11, coming this fall, people will be able to make person-to-person money transfers.
Spreading Apple Pay has a twofold benefit to Apple. On top of it encouraging people to use its hardware, the company earns a small fee from each transaction, which can translate into millions of dollars on a wide scale.
Comments
If I follow correctly it automatically processes the loyalty rewards alongside your Apple Pay payment transaction.
Doesn't that somewhat defeat the anonymity of Apple Pay?
I use Apple Pay at my local grocery store all the time. In order to take adavantage of the rewards I use my mother-in-law's loyalty card and punch it in manually (they look it up via her telephone number). I can't see that it would work that way at a restaurant, who would get the reward when enough points had been accumulated? It wouldn't make a lot of sense to use someone else's card or let someone use yours.
I used Apple Pay twice today and both times I used a loyalty card in order to get discounts on my purchases—a mom-and-pop dry cleaners and Rite-Aide. I personally don't care if Rite-Aide wants to figure out my buying habits, I just want my actual purchases to be secure.
Most restaurant/fast food loyalty cards (in Canada) simply use stamps to count purchases - not like Grocery or Pharmacy loyalty cards.
This is just a new option with interesting implications.
I use Apple Pay @ Walgreens for:
1) Loyalty
2) Payment
... but it requires two separate thumb-presses. It'd be nice to have one thumb-press trigger two transactions (loyalty + payment) if the user had configured it to allow that.