Do you carry around points and rewards cards, cards for grocery stores, cards for drugstores, cards for travel? I hate to put the mini ones on my keychain, so I have them wrapped in a rubber band that I carry around. I like to make sure I get my Insider Beauty points at Sephora, what can I say?
I’m always on the lookout for a neat app to make my life easier. Some are silly and I don’t use them, but Cardstar is really very useful. This one came to me from Nathanael, the Pilates instructor at Chelsea Piers. And it’s free, anadded bonus.
CardStar lets you load your card numbers and adds the bar codes, so it looks just like your plastic card. You can search for store, airline, etc in the various groups (travel, grocery) in the app. The developers must have contracted with quite a few places because there was only 1 I couldn’t find.
Here is my uploaded CVS card:
The real test of whether this app works, though, is taking it to a store and getting them to scan my screen.
Test Location: DSW in Manchester, CT
I really wanted to try it here because I could be certain there wasn’t a line behind me. At first, she looked at it and seemed a little perplexed. I assured her it was my card, so she gave it a scan. I think we were both surprised when it registered at the register. I loved her comment: Is that one of those app things?
What I would love to see is coupons for my phone, or stores scanning the coupon code from an email. It seems like such a hassle to remember the actual coupon in the mail, or have to print the email. Another way to “save” money!
Jillie of All Trades 
I didn't have much luck at two stores. Kind of bumbed since I wasted time entering data. Great idea but needs some work.
That's very interesting…I have to admit, I'm afraid to use it anywhere else. I think it was the IDEA that I didn't have to carry around all of these cards all the time. Maybe I'll take the Duane Reade for a spin tomorrow! It actually didn't get great reviews in the app store.