On Thursday, the company announced that it’s the first to offer its loyalty card through Apple Pay, the mobile payments solution that’s baked into the iPhone 6 and up.
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In a sign of things to come for retailers, Walgreens is making it much easier to use its Balance Rewards loyalty card with Apple Pay, Apple’s contactless payment system.
Users will have to add the Balance Rewards digital card to the Wallet app in iOS9 and use it at checkout with Apple Pay, Walgreens said.
While Apple Pay has been available for a little more than a year, usage rates are still low.
All that users need to do is simply add the Balance Rewards digital card to the Wallet app in iOS 9 and use it at checkout with Apple Pay. Walgreens customers with Apple Watch can just double-click the side button, select their Balance Rewards card, and hold the face of Apple Watch up to the reader. Walgreens, though, will be one of the larger integrations, as well as the first.
It doesn’t take long, and you’d have to slide an additional card or enter a phone number to manually pull up your rewards account even if you didn’t use Apple Pay. “This offering supports our commitment to removing friction and enabling a simple and convenient customer experience”. With Apple Pay, however, the process is a bit more automated as the information is sent digitally through Apple’s NFC-based payments platform. The Apple Watch also supports Apple Pay, so if you can also hold up your wrist to authenticate a transaction.
Loyalty cards are a pain.
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Walgreens was already one of the first retailers to accept Apple Pay, so it’s not surprising that it’s also one of the first partners to go live with support for loyalty cards.
