Walgreens Officially Launches First Apple Pay Loyalty Rewards Program

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.

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

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

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.

It's not possible.

Walgreens enabled EMV for NFC transactions, and EMV requires the final purchase amount sent to the "card" (in this case, your phone) for the transaction to be authorized. This is why the NFC reader isn't enabled on the PIN Pads at Walgreens until the cashier finishes scanning your stuff and totals the transaction. Also the same reason why when paying with a chip card at an EMV enabled retailer, you have to wait until the cashier's done before inserting your card whereas before you could swipe while the cashier was scanning. So what this means is ApplePay/Walgreens can't combine the rewards card and payment card into one tap. It needs the rewards card first, then the register has to subtract any discounts you have from it to get the final amount, then that needs to be sent back to the phone to authorize the payment.

Some (okay, most) other retailers are still using MSD mode for NFC transactions. That allows you to tap before the transaction is totaled as it more closely mirrors swiping a card to the terminal and processor and you could theoretically combine rewards and payment into one tap, but MSD is supposed to be going away eventually in favor of EMV. The big difference is EMV NFC, if implemented correctly (and that's a big if because retailers are stupid), will not require you to sign (or enter a PIN for debit) for your purchases because the phone can tell the PIN Pad that you used the phone's fingerprint scanner or PIN to authenticate yourself and you don't need to do it again on the PIN pad

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?)

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.

Gotta agree with the "because retailers are stupid" part. I was in Crate & Barrel this last weekend, and they have a tap to pay terminal. I asked the woman if it was active, and she said she thought so. I said, "Let's see" and used my Watch. It gave me that satisfying vibration and ding, followed by the friendly checkmark. "How cool." I thought. Then...

TIL Crate & Barrel turned on their NFC terminal!

Clerk: "Sir, I need the last four digits of that card."
Me: "I don't have the card with me. It's Apple Pay. You know? Secure. Can't use it without it actually being me?"
Clerk: " ..... "
Me: "Sigh. Let me pull out another card and swipe it."

You _do_ have last four digit. For the Watch, it's a bit trickier though as you have to go to the Watch app on your phone, to Wallet, and then click on the card. It'll be under "Device Account Number".