These days, most stores require you to carry a membership card to take advantage of special deals and sales. I love saving money as much as anybody, but those cards have always annoyed me. Flimsy keychain cards get beat up in a matter of weeks. Plus if I’ve borrowed my husband’s keys, I’m out of luck and have to make the cashier search for me, while the people behind me in line get increasingly impatient. Wallet cards frequently get lost in one of the many pockets in my purse. (I thought that the pockets would make more organized, but this seems to have backfired.)
Enter Cardstar. This spiffy iPhone app lets you store all of your membership cards on your phone. All you have to do is enter in your account information and the numbers along the bottom of the bar code, and the app stores them for you. When you go to the store, simply whip out your iPhone and the app will bring up a scannable copy of the bar code on the screen of your phone. Hand your phone to the cashier, and you’re good to go!
The only catch is that the app isn’t working for everyone, judging from the reviews in the iTunes store. Some reviewers have noted that you may have to experiment with screen brightness settings to get optimal scanning capability. Also, you need to keep your screen clean, and it works with handheld scanners, not flatbeds.
Still, once you have it figured out, you can leave all those cards at home. Even if it won’t scan every time, you’ll still have the bar code number stored in your phone so that the cashier can locate your account. Cardstar supports cards from 200 companies, including stores, libraries, gyms and travel. If you need to store a card that’s not on the list, they can give you instructions for configuring the app, and there’s also a suggestion box on the Cardstar website where you can suggest cards that they don’t currently support.
The concept is innovative, the user interface is easy to navigate, and it’s certainly useful (when it works, that is). I can’t wait until they come out with a Blackberry version! The only thing I wonder about is how the cashiers in my town would react to me whipping out my cell phone instead of an actual card.
What do you think of Cardstar? If you’ve used it, how do cashiers generally react? Leave your thoughts and experiences in the comments!
Our Rating of Cardstar
Categories:mobile
any idea if they will ever make a Palm version?
Not sure…right now the website only lists Android and Blackberry Apps in the works. It would be nice for Palm users, though.
my cashiers just stare at me like ok where’s the card. Then it wouldn’t scan my phone so they had to manually enter…wasn’t as cool that way!!
Yeah…I’ll probably try it when they get the Blackberry version out, but I’m expecting some weird reactions. I live in a small town and people are pretty old-fashioned.
Same thing happened to me at Best Buy. The guy tried to scan it several times, but it just didn’t work. I think I was holding it in landscape mode though, so I’ll give it a try next time in portrait.
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Works for most stores with handheld scanners, would not work at stop and shop with flatbed scanners but you can enter the number manually. handy, wallet much thinner now.
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