Do you have all these annoying key tag cards that you need in order to check in at the gym or library? Or how about the discount key tags for your local supermarket or sports stores? Yeah, I do too and they bug me more than you can imagine. I thought when I found this little wallet holder for them that my problem was solved. In all honesty it was just one more thing to have to carry around. After browsing the BlackBerry App World (can also be downloaded by going to www.mycardstar.com) , I ran across an app called CardStar. I cannot tell you how excited I got when I read what this app supposedly did. It has a pre-loaded list of stores (all of mine were listed save one) as well as an option to add your own for things like local libraries and gym memberships. Really? An app that would get these annoying things off my keys? To top it all off it’s a free app. I downloaded it immediately. It took me a few minutes to load all of my cards info into the app and when I was done I had this:
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The screen with your bar code had a banner at the top with tabs: Card, Info & Deals. The Card tab is your bar code and membership number, the Info tab has links to the website (if available), call the store, search Google & a few other options. Turns out this is a new option that is still in the works but eventually the Deals tab will link any specials that store is running (so cool!).
I couldn’t wait to try this out at a store but was a bit skeptical since I’d had issues scanning bar codes on my device before. I went to my local CVS and picked up a few items. When the sales clerk asked for my Extrabucks card, I whipped out my BlackBerry and called up the CardStar app. At first the sales clerk looked at me funny until I explained. She was more than willing to help me out (I went during an off time so no worries about holding up the line) and tried running my BlackBerry over the scanner. No luck. I was bummed. The sales clerk suggested she try the hand-held scanner and I said sure why not. Bingo! Worked like a charm. I was so excited but wanted to give it another try somewhere else. My gym is notorious for having malfunctions with scanning the cards so I thought this would really put it to the test. Walked into the gym with just my BlackBerry, water bottle and headphones praying this worked because I really didn’t want to walk back to my car for my card if it didn’t. Pulled up my membership card bar code for my gym and tried to scan it. No go. I’m a determined (ok, lazy) person so I thought I will get this to work. I waved my BlackBerry back & forth, up & down and finally must have gotten it just right because I got a beep and my picture showed up on the screen. Success!
Final thoughts: This app is handy and seems to work at most locations with some work. Yes, it’s nice not to have the key tags hanging off my key chain but I’m not sure if it’s the quicker option. Scanning at a few places took work & once or twice I couldn’t get it to scan at all and had to pull out my cards (I was saving them just in case) and scan them instead.