Walgreens Officially Launches First Apple Pay Loyalty Rewards Program

MacRumors · Nov 5, 2015

Popular retailer Walgreens today announced that its Balance Rewards loyalty program can now be linked with Apple Pay and used by its customers across the country. The partnership will allow Apple Pay users to link their Balance Rewards card with the mobile payments service so they can earn and redeem loyalty points without having to scan their physical Walgreens card. Following Kohl's launch of Apple Pay support for its store-branded credit card, Walgreens is the first retailer to support a loyalty rewards program within Apple Pay.

"We're excited to be the first to provide our customers with increased ease of access to their Balance Rewards account and information when using Apple Pay," said Sona Chawla, president of digital and chief marketing officer for Walgreens. "This offering supports our commitment to removing friction and enabling a simple and convenient customer experience."

Users simply need to add their Balance Rewards card into the Wallet app, going through the same process as adding a traditional credit or debit card, to be able to use the new feature at Walgreens on an iPhone and Apple Watch. The announcement comes just over a week after NFC abilities were discovered alongside Balance Rewards cards in the Wallet app, hinting at incoming loyalty rewards support from Walgreens.

Article Link: Walgreens Officially Launches First Apple Pay Loyalty Rewards Program

dbenesch · Nov 5, 2015

Wegmans grocery stores recently updated their iPhone app, and I noticed that their loyalty card in iOS 9 Wallet is now Apple Pay enabled. I'm not sure if it was the app update or the latest iOS 9.2 public beta, but one or both of those enabled it.

2457282 · Nov 5, 2015

So how will this work exactly? Will you have to use apple pay to enter your rewards card and then again to pay? Although this is still cool, it would be awesome if there was a way to do this where one Apple Pay "swipe" is needed and takes care of both the rewards and payments. Of course Kohl's does this by having the rewards and the credit card all in one, but I am thinking about all the other reward cards that are not part of a credit card. Anyway, glad to see progress.

Jbs541 · Nov 5, 2015

Walgreens continues to keep up with the times, I love it.

Parasprite · Nov 5, 2015

I'm glad that we finally have a payment method secure enough that there isn't any (security-related) reason to worry about storing that kind of information at store level.

Cuban Missles said:
So how will this work exactly? Will you have to use apple pay to enter your rewards card and then again to pay? Although this is still cool, it would be awesome if there was a way to do this where one Apple Pay "swipe" is needed and takes care of both the rewards and payments. Of course Kohl's does this by having the rewards and the credit card all in one, but I am thinking about all the other reward cards that are not part of a credit card. Anyway, glad to see progress.

Oh, hmm. Maybe this isn't what I thought it was.

DingusKhan · Nov 5, 2015

In practice, do the rewards program and payment NFC transaction occur simultaneously? Or must the user:

1) select the rewards card from Wallet
2) then execute the rewards NFC transaction
3) then execute a payment NFC transaction

The two-step method isn't horrible, but a simultaneous transaction would be preferred in my opinion.

Edit: Cuban Missles beat me to it.

gsmornot · Nov 5, 2015

Cuban Missles said:
So how will this work exactly? Will you have to use apple pay to enter your rewards card and then again to pay? Although this is still cool, it would be awesome if there was a way to do this where one Apple Pay "swipe" is needed and takes care of both the rewards and payments. Of course Kohl's does this by having the rewards and the credit card all in one, but I am thinking about all the other reward cards that are not part of a credit card. Anyway, glad to see progress.

Click on the word announced in the article. The first line says "Walgreens Balance® Rewards members can now seamlessly use their account through Apple Pay - without separately scanning a Balance Rewards card or barcode."

businezguy · Nov 5, 2015

No more carrying around those stupid reward cards: Albertson's, King Soopers, etc. Now I can see the potential in Apple Pay!

gsmornot · Nov 5, 2015

Looking at the article, it looks like you select your Balance Rewards card at time to pay and with one swipe, it will pay and give you points because you have already used your finger print for authorization. On the watch you pay by selecting your rewards card. I assume this will use your default card for payment.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/ho...-Launch-Loyalty-Program-Integration-Apple-Pay

DingusKhan · Nov 5, 2015

gsmornot said:
Click on the word announced in the article. The first line says "Walgreens Balance® Rewards members can now seamlessly use their account through Apple Pay - without separately scanning a Balance Rewards card or barcode."

I saw that, but I still don't think it's clear. The wording of the announcement leads me to believe that they've just replaced scanning a rewards card (or looking it up by phone number since I never carry mine) with an Apple Pay NFC transaction (but not necessarily a payment transaction).

So to me it seems that the user can use Apple Pay to get provide their rewards program information but then must still execute a payment transaction - NFC or other method.

gsmornot · Nov 5, 2015

businezguy said:
No more carrying around those stupid reward cards: Albertson's, King Soopers, etc. Now I can see the potential in Apple Pay!

Too bad King Soopers is not on Apple Pay. (or is it in your area?)

DingusKhan said:
I saw that, but I still don't think it's clear. The wording of the announcement leads me to believe that they've just replaced scanning a rewards card (or looking it up by phone number since I never carry mine) with an Apple Pay NFC transaction (but not necessarily a payment transaction).

So to me it seems that the user can use Apple Pay to get provide their rewards program information but then must still execute a payment transaction - NFC or other method.

I'm close to a Walgreens so I will test it today. I'm sure someone else will stop by one first but I still want to try it out.

2457282 · Nov 5, 2015

gsmornot said:
Click on the word announced in the article. The first line says "Walgreens Balance® Rewards members can now seamlessly use their account through Apple Pay - without separately scanning a Balance Rewards card or barcode."

I read the announcement, but to me it is not clear. I am sure as soon as someone tries this out we will get a definitive answer.

OldSchoolMacGuy · Nov 5, 2015

I'd love to have all rewards cards go this way. I never bother to carry 99% of them as it makes no sense to carry so many cards in your wallet that you may use just once a year.

DingusKhan said:
I saw that, but I still don't think it's clear. The wording of the announcement leads me to believe that they've just replaced scanning a rewards card (or looking it up by phone number since I never carry mine) with an Apple Pay NFC transaction (but not necessarily a payment transaction).

So to me it seems that the user can use Apple Pay to get provide their rewards program information but then must still execute a payment transaction - NFC or other method.

This is exactly how it works. Apple Pay functionality can be used in place of scanning your rewards card. You will still have to use it again if you want to pay using a credit card with Apple Pay or swipe another card.

Parasprite · Nov 5, 2015

businezguy said:
No more carrying around those stupid reward cards: Albertson's, King Soopers, etc. Now I can see the potential in Apple Pay!

I don't use any rewards programs that don't at least let you just enter your phone number. It's better that way.

Iconoclysm · Nov 5, 2015

This simply replaces the need to use a QR code for the card in your wallet - it's nice but still hasn't reached the point where you don't need to swipe two cards. Since I don't have a physical card, I can't tell if you can add this to the Apple Watch but the addition to passbook from the Walgreens app was seamless.

gsmornot · Nov 5, 2015

Iconoclysm said:
This simply replaces the need to use a QR code for the card in your wallet - it's nice but still hasn't reached the point where you don't need to swipe two cards. Since I don't have a physical card, I can't tell if you can add this to the Apple Watch but the addition to passbook from the Walgreens app was seamless.

Its on the watch. When I double click the friends button, the Walgreens card is one of the cards I see. Normally you only see payment cards but this is part of the change.

peteo · Nov 5, 2015

Jbs541 said:
Walgreens continues to keep up with the times, I love it.

Agree, they were the first with apple pay, and now this. CVS is falling behind and I'm choosing to go to Walgreens so I don't need to worry if they get hacked like CVS did and I needed to get my cards changed. CurrentC is dead, move on CVS

kghoops · Nov 5, 2015

Iconoclysm said:
This simply replaces the need to use a QR code for the card in your wallet - it's nice but still hasn't reached the point where you don't need to swipe two cards. Since I don't have a physical card, I can't tell if you can add this to the Apple Watch but the addition to passbook from the Walgreens app was seamless.

Not so. I have not tested yet but I did add my card to my wallet and it has an option screen during setup to "Automatically Select" or "Do Not Automatically Select" the Walgreens card when paying.

gstevie · Nov 5, 2015

It would be good to see Boots UK making the move on this too, considering they are the same company now. They were also the launch partner for Apple Pay in the UK.

peteo · Nov 5, 2015

OldSchoolMacGuy said:
This is exactly how it works. Apple Pay functionality can be used in place of scanning your rewards card. You will still have to use it again if you want to pay using a credit card with Apple Pay or swipe another card.

Wish it was smart enough to know its a Walgreens terminal and have it auto use the card when you pay with apple pay. It should be like, Terminal send RF to device, Im a Walgreens terminal. Then Apple pay should be like, Heres my authorization token and my rewards info. (of course have an option in the wallet card to set if you want it to auto do this or not)

EDIT: Well I guess Apple is very smart and they did add this feature...

KPOM · Nov 5, 2015

Nice. Now make the rewards program more useful. It's difficult to figure out what transactions do and do not qualify for reward points because it varies around the country.

sikachu · Nov 5, 2015

dbenesch said:
Wegmans grocery stores recently updated their iPhone app, and I noticed that their loyalty card in iOS 9 Wallet is now Apple Pay enabled. I'm not sure if it was the app update or the latest iOS 9.2 public beta, but one or both of those enabled it.

It should have been the app update. The functionality was always there in iOS 9, but no one utilized it (since you need to update POS, etc.)

peteo · Nov 5, 2015

kghoops said:
Not so. I have not tested yet but I did add my card to my wallet and it has an option screen during setup to "Automatically Select" or "Do Not Automatically Select" the Walgreens card when paying.

Nice Didn't notice this. its also on the card in the wallet app so you can turn that on or off.

ConnYoungy · Nov 5, 2015

I wish more companies would get their acts together and implement Wallet. Especially the ones who already have apps that support their store cards

ghostface147 · Nov 5, 2015

We just input our phone number for balance rewards while the cashier is scanning the items and then use Apple Pay. Never had a balance rewards card, so I would have no idea how to add one to Wallet. If this does balance rewards and Apple Pay at the same time (waiting for someone to field test it and report back), even better.

It used to be that all of our local Walgreens in Houston would require you to input your pin after using Apple Pay no matter the dollar amount, but that just stopped recently. Weird, but now much more convenient.

Walgreens Officially Launches First Apple Pay Loyalty Rewards Program

macrumors bot

macrumors newbie

Suspended

macrumors newbie

macrumors 68000

macrumors newbie

macrumors 68040

macrumors 6502

macrumors 68040

macrumors newbie

macrumors 68040

Suspended

Suspended

macrumors 68000

macrumors 68040

macrumors 68040

macrumors regular

macrumors newbie

Attachments

macrumors 6502

macrumors regular

macrumors P6

macrumors newbie

macrumors regular

Cancelled

macrumors 601

Our Staff