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.

6 Comments

mknelson 1147 comments · 9 Years

About 7 years ago

Interesting concept.

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?

ihatescreennames 1971 comments · 19 Years

mknelson said:

Doesn't that somewhat defeat the anonymity of Apple Pay?

That was my first thought as well. How would it work otherwise?

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.

Soli 9981 comments · 9 Years

mknelson said:

Interesting concept.

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?

If you're looking for anonymity then don't use a reward card, but the key benefits of Apple Pay is security from not having your physical card present, your card being used with device authentication (which is much harder to access when your device is biometrical and passcode/password protected), and using a representational number issued by the bank for your device plus a token (which eliminates card skimming).

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.

mrboba1 274 comments · 13 Years

I just want to be able to use Apple Pay wherever I go. I apparently go to some places that seem to be targets for card number theft, because shortly I'll be on my 3rd card this year for the same account.

Soli said:

mknelson said:

Doesn't that somewhat defeat the anonymity of Apple Pay?

If you're looking for anonymity then don't use a reward card, but the key benefits of Apple Pay is security from not having your physical card present, your card being used with device authentication (which is much harder to access when your device is biometrical and passcode/password protected), and using a representational number issued by the bank for your device plus a token (which eliminates card skimming).

I know all about Apple Pay tokenization - that wasn't what I was asking about.

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.