So I’m a big credit card user. Ninety-five percent of all my transactions are paid using a credit card, which helps me keep track of my expenses and accrue cashback rebates.
It’s not surprising that I’m also a sucker for these novelty credit cards. In high school I used the Discover2Go card, which was a mini credit card that was perfect for grocery store credit card readers (where you swipe the card to the side) but useless for gas stations (where you insert the entire card into the reader, like an ATM machine). I also had a seldom-used smart card that had an embedded chip that stored passwords and other data.
I recently got a new contact-less keychain “payment tag” — the MasterCard PayPass through Citibank. It’s a translucent-blue tag with an embedded RFID chip that looks cool and works like a charm. So far, I’ve only been able to use my PayPass in a few locations such as Best Buy, McDonald’s, Wegman’s, BJ’s Wholesale, CVS, 7-Eleven and Office Depot, since not many places have the PayPass readers yet.
It’s definitely convenient that, with the PayPass, I don’t have to pull out my wallet or sign for transactions under $25. I’m hoping more merchants will use the readers.
There are several card issuers offering the MasterCard PayPass, including Bank of America, Chase, and Citibank.