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CaptMarvel

macrumors 68000
Sep 20, 2014
1,738
2,145
North Carolina
I'm curious about the Target Red Card---and so sorry for not knowing this-- Is it a credit card? A debit card? Some kind of points card? I'm curious about the 5% discount.

Target Red Card is either a debit card OR credit card, whichever you chose when setting up. Both grant you the 5% and other perks with regards to shipping. With the Target Debit Card you link it to a checking account of your choice and the amount is ACH from that account within 2 days, just like that of a written check. The credit card version is like that of your typical credit card, with amount granted upon credit worthiness.
 

Mercenary

macrumors 65816
Sep 17, 2012
1,243
627
I was recently in america for 3 weeks (UK dude here) and was amazed at just how few places accept Apple Pay or even contactless.

Here in the UK everywhere takes contactless, you dont even have to ask but in the USA I ask, I get a funny look as if swiping was too hard for me. And often when they do take contactless I still had to sign a piece of paper (which no one EVER checked matched the card signature).

You guys put a man on the moon but seemingly contactless is causing you some trouble.
 

tromboneaholic

Suspended
Jun 9, 2004
3,706
3,024
Clearwater, FL
I disagree, there is nothing worse than getting behind someone who busts out the checkbook to make their payment lol
...especially the ones who wait to start rummaging through their purse to look for the checkbook until after the cashier rings up their entire purchase and gives them the total.
 

ftaok

macrumors 603
Jan 23, 2002
6,491
1,573
East Coast
I love Apple Pay and use it wherever I can, especially with my watch. It means I don't even have to take anything in the store with me.

I'm curious about the Target Red Card---and so sorry for not knowing this-- Is it a credit card? A debit card? Some kind of points card? I'm curious about the 5% discount.
In addition to what CaptainMarvel mentioned, the Red Card gives you free shipping on all orders from Target.com.

The other benefit of the Red Card, is that you don't have to mess around too much shopping for the best price. Just look up the price of something at BestBuy, Amazon, and Walmart and then head to Target. They'll match the price, plus you get the 5% discount.
 

jnick

macrumors regular
Jan 22, 2008
107
8
NY
I have been using Apple Pay since launch and can honestly say, any place I've gone that advertised 'Apple Pay,' I've never had a problem with. Use it all the time at Walgreens, Stewarts shop (quick mart type of place), McDonalds, Best Buy, Panera...anywhere I can. I've never experienced it 'flake out'? I'm just curious...when it flakes out, what do you as the user experience? Does the NFC just not read the phone and the transaction never starts or does it fail mid way through?
 

JT2002TJ

macrumors 68020
Nov 7, 2013
2,072
1,398
I have been using Apple Pay since launch and can honestly say, any place I've gone that advertised 'Apple Pay,' I've never had a problem with. Use it all the time at Walgreens, Stewarts shop (quick mart type of place), McDonalds, Best Buy, Panera...anywhere I can. I've never experienced it 'flake out'? I'm just curious...when it flakes out, what do you as the user experience? Does the NFC just not read the phone and the transaction never starts or does it fail mid way through?

For me, everything runs like it is going to work, but right when it should day approved, it says some type of error. So, it does take time, it isn't like it fails before attempting to process.
 

Tinmania

macrumors 68040
Aug 8, 2011
3,528
1,016
Aridzona
Target has a debit card option that saves 5% which is debited from your checking account automatically. So no need to get a target credit card.
I am aware of that, but at the time wasn't sure I wanted a third-party payment card that dipped directly into my checking account.

The credit card is fine, it's just my own fault for paying it off just about every time I use it. I got semi-burned by that last year's Black Friday, when buying a couple of TVs (> $2,000) after being told the model was the same as Sam's Club, just a different number. In fact the TVs I bought had no bluetooth and the remote was only IR. At Sam's they had those features so I returned the two from Target (unopened, factory sealed). Since I had already made the RedCard payment, the return left my RedCard with a credit of over $2,000. After a call they said it is already policy to mail out a check for any credit balance over a certain amount. Indeed after a week or so I got the check. But it would have been easier using a debit card.



Mike
[doublepost=1544108519][/doublepost]
Why would you do that? You're missing out on the 25+ day grace period. You obviously have the money in your bank account, why not hold onto it for another 25 days?

Other than the mental feeling of not owing money, I don't see a purpose. YMMV.
You are right, there is no purpose. It's just something I have always done. I'll have to reconsider.



Mike
 

MisterSavage

macrumors 601
Nov 10, 2018
4,856
5,756
I just got this in my email today. Sounds good to me!

"Simply pay with your Chase Sapphire Reserve® card in Apple Pay between Dec. 3 and Dec. 31, 2018, and you will get one extra point per $1 spent in addition to the points you already earn."

I was recently in america for 3 weeks (UK dude here) and was amazed at just how few places accept Apple Pay or even contactless.

Lol, I was the opposite. I was in Europe being amazed at all of the places I could use it. My favorite was the line for a water closet. While many people were rummaging for coins to pay I used my watch with Apple Pay to get in.

I have been using Apple Pay since launch and can honestly say, any place I've gone that advertised 'Apple Pay,' I've never had a problem with. Use it all the time at Walgreens, Stewarts shop (quick mart type of place), McDonalds, Best Buy, Panera...anywhere I can. I've never experienced it 'flake out'? I'm just curious...when it flakes out, what do you as the user experience? Does the NFC just not read the phone and the transaction never starts or does it fail mid way through?

I have had failures maybe two or three times. One was at an outside gas pump (I assume a bad reader).
 
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redman042

macrumors 68040
Jun 13, 2008
3,063
1,657
I was recently in america for 3 weeks (UK dude here) and was amazed at just how few places accept Apple Pay or even contactless.

Here in the UK everywhere takes contactless, you dont even have to ask but in the USA I ask, I get a funny look as if swiping was too hard for me. And often when they do take contactless I still had to sign a piece of paper (which no one EVER checked matched the card signature).

You guys put a man on the moon but seemingly contactless is causing you some trouble.

Oh yeah?? Well, you guys don't have real Ranch Dressing over there! How can you not have Ranch Dressing after all these years??

(Just having a little fun...)

Yes our contactless payment rollout has been painfully slow. I've seen a lot of improvement over the last year or so though. But we are a huge country with a massive number of retail businesses. The cost of converting all the terminals is rather staggering. That, and some larger businesses took this as an opportunity to push their own proprietary solutions which just slowed the rollout of universal solutions.
 
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sosumi99

macrumors 6502
Oct 27, 2003
363
322
I was recently in america for 3 weeks (UK dude here) and was amazed at just how few places accept Apple Pay or even contactless.

Here in the UK everywhere takes contactless, you dont even have to ask but in the USA I ask, I get a funny look as if swiping was too hard for me. And often when they do take contactless I still had to sign a piece of paper (which no one EVER checked matched the card signature).

You guys put a man on the moon but seemingly contactless is causing you some trouble.

Yeah, that is true. First-mover disadvantage, I suppose. Hopefully this means the US will be at the forefront of whatever comes after contactless payments since I doubt we'll ever get it to work as seamlessly as in Europe. (And don't get me started about the backward state of our horrible metro systems)
 

MisterSavage

macrumors 601
Nov 10, 2018
4,856
5,756
And often when they do take contactless I still had to sign a piece of paper (which no one EVER checked matched the card signature).

Don't get me started on the inanity of asking for a signature when using a credit card. Thankfully the major card issuers dropped the signature requirement this year (although SO many vendors still ask for it). I've been scribbling nonsense for my "signature" for years. Ironically I recently got called out for it for the first time in years at a gift shop in Germany. :D
 
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eoblaed

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Apr 21, 2010
3,088
3,202
Chipped card reader as so fast now and near fool proof.

Not even remotely as fast as Apple Pay. Like most/all Apple Pay users, I use both very frequently (Apple Pay where it's available, chip where it's not) and the difference in speed, in favor of Apple Pay, is very obvious.

Also chips are not as private or secure. The privacy difference should be obvious; vendors can (and do) track your purchases even if you use a chip. Not important for everyone, but important for some, and a feature that shouldn't be ignored.

For security, see this article:

https://blog.bluepay.com/how-does-apple-pay-compare-to-emv-chip-pin

Where they mention, among others things:

EMV cards can use tokenization, but this extra security feature isn't necessarily standard.

This is an important distinction — especially for e-commerce merchants.

In the online world, EMV's security technology becomes obsolete. With online shopping carts, there's no way for customers to use the embedded chip. And thus, chip & PIN cards are about as secure as normal swipe & sign plastic. Apple Pay's tokenization works for all retail environments — online and offline.

Since tokenization is non-standard, you have no idea if that's the underlying technology in play when you use your chip card. Tokenization is integral to the design of Apple Pay, though and is something you can be guaranteed of.

One of the many reasons I use Apple Pay everywhere I can. I just which more gas stations would start supporting it (I've seen a couple so far).
 
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ActionableMango

macrumors G3
Sep 21, 2010
9,613
6,909
In the UK if contactless works in any form you can use ApplePay and although I don't know for sure about the USA a store or payment network they use would have to explicitly block it for it not to work..?

Here in the USA if there is NFC, it accepts Apple Pay.

I was recently in america for 3 weeks (UK dude here) and was amazed at just how few places accept Apple Pay or even contactless.

Yes, we are idiots. There was this big push to replace all of the payment terminals in the last few years in order to get away from the magnetic stripe. So do we go all the way to the latest? NFC and Chip+PIN?

Nope...we take a halfway step... Chip+Signature, and no NFC. So we're going to have to replace them all again just to catch up to what you guys have had for years now. :(

Some day I hope the USA becomes a technologically advanced country.
 

eoblaed

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Apr 21, 2010
3,088
3,202
Here in the USA if there is NFC, it accepts Apple Pay.

More accurately, if there is NFC it has the capability to accept Apple Pay, but it may not depending on the vendor and their settings.

Home Depot readers have NFC, but do not accept Apple Pay. The Vitamin Shoppe by my house has a reader that accepts Samsung Pay (buh?) but not Apple Pay; I've encountered other vendors that are similar. The vendor has the ability to enable/disable whatever types of NFC payments they want.
 
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Newtons Apple

Suspended
Mar 12, 2014
22,757
15,254
Jacksonville, Florida
Not even remotely as fast as Apple Pay. Like most/all Apple Pay users, I use both very frequently (Apple Pay where it's available, chip where it's not) and the difference in speed, in favor of Apple Pay, is very obvious.

Also chips are not as private or secure. The privacy difference should be obvious; vendors can (and do) track your purchases even if you use a chip. Not important for everyone, but important for some, and a feature that shouldn't be ignored.

For security, see this article:

https://blog.bluepay.com/how-does-apple-pay-compare-to-emv-chip-pin

Where they mention, among others things:

EMV cards can use tokenization, but this extra security feature isn't necessarily standard.

This is an important distinction — especially for e-commerce merchants.

In the online world, EMV's security technology becomes obsolete. With online shopping carts, there's no way for customers to use the embedded chip. And thus, chip & PIN cards are about as secure as normal swipe & sign plastic. Apple Pay's tokenization works for all retail environments — online and offline.

Since tokenization is non-standard, you have no idea if that's the underlying technology in play when you use your chip card. Tokenization is integral to the design of Apple Pay, though and is something you can be guaranteed of.

One of the many reasons I use Apple Pay everywhere I can. I just which more gas stations would start supporting it (I've seen a couple so far).

Good for you but I will do it my way if that is ok.
 

MisterSavage

macrumors 601
Nov 10, 2018
4,856
5,756
Something I didn't know about Apple Pay is that if your credit card gets compromised you do NOT lose access to that card in Apple Pay. It does actually make sense when you consider it isn't your "real" credit card number that is being used with an Apple Pay transaction. When Chase flagged my card and I was waiting for a replacement I was able to keep making charges to it with Apple Pay.
 
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redman042

macrumors 68040
Jun 13, 2008
3,063
1,657
I only use Apple pay @ the gas station.

That's the one place I have NOT been able to use it. I take that back... I remember one time when I pulled up to a pump modern enough to have contactless payment on it. Besides that, no gas stations anywhere in my area accept contactless payment, or even chips for that matter. I've seen stations put in brand-new pumps recently that still just have the standard card reader on it.

For whatever reason, the stations in my area are in no hurry to upgrade, despite the countless cases of skimming devices being put on the pumps.
 

eoblaed

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Apr 21, 2010
3,088
3,202
Interesting. My friend's Samsung Pay doesn't work at Home Depot so I had assumed they didn't have NFC at all.

At one point, Apple Pay did work at their readers; I used it at least half a dozen times even though they didn’t advertise it. This was pretty early on as far as Apple Pay is concerned. But then they quietly disabled support for it for some reason I’m not clear on. :(
 

MisterSavage

macrumors 601
Nov 10, 2018
4,856
5,756
At one point, Apple Pay did work at their readers; I used it at least half a dozen times even though they didn’t advertise it. This was pretty early on as far as Apple Pay is concerned. But then they quietly disabled support for it for some reason I’m not clear on. :(

The worst offender has to be CVS. They had the ability to take Apple Pay but disabled it and didn't come around for years.

https://www.macrumors.com/2014/10/25/cvs-disabling-nfc-apple-pay/
 
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