How to Migrate Your Plastic Card Programme to Apple Wallet and Google Wallet

Plastic loyalty cards cost between 30p and 80p each to print, plus postage. They get lost in coat pockets, left in last year's handbag, or quietly thrown away. When a customer loses their card they lose their points history — and frequently their enthusiasm for the programme. Digital wallet passes eliminate all three problems simultaneously: the card is always on the phone the customer already carries, the points balance updates in real time and you gain a direct push notification channel to the lock screen. The migration from plastic to digital is one of the highest-return projects a loyalty or membership team can undertake. Here is how to do it properly.

Why migrate now

The economics of plastic cards have worsened steadily. Print costs, minimum order quantities, fulfilment and postage mean that issuing a plastic card to a new member costs between £1.50 and £3.00 when all costs are included. For a programme with 50,000 members, that is up to £150,000 in card issuance costs alone — before any re-issuance for lost cards or design refreshes.

Digital wallet passes carry no per-card printing or postage cost. The infrastructure cost is a platform fee that scales with usage, not a per-unit physical cost. For most programmes, the platform cost is recovered in the first month of migration.

Beyond cost, the push notification channel is the most significant operational gain. 94% of new smartphones support NFC, and over 2 billion people globally have a wallet app on their device. When you migrate to digital, you gain the ability to push a message to your entire membership base in seconds — with a 69% open rate — without any additional per-message cost.

Pre-migration checklist

Before you begin the migration, confirm that the following are in place:

• Member export. Export your complete member list with: full name, email address, current points or stamp count, tier or membership level, member number, and membership expiry date if applicable. This file is the foundation of your digital migration.
• Email coverage. Digital passes are delivered by email link or QR code. Identify any members for whom you do not have a valid email address — these require a separate in-store capture strategy before migration.
• Points mapping decision. Decide how you will carry over existing points. Most programmes carry balances forward exactly. Some use a migration as an opportunity to rebase points (e.g. converting old points to a new currency) — if so, communicate the conversion clearly.
• Barcode format. Your pass barcode must match the format your point-of-sale system or scanner reads. Confirm whether your existing plastic cards use QR code, Code 128, PDF417 or another format, and configure your digital pass to match.
• GDPR compliance check. Confirm your lawful basis for processing member data in the new digital format, and ensure your privacy policy references the wallet pass platform as a data processor.

Migration strategy options

There is no single right migration strategy — the best approach depends on your member base size, demographic and the urgency of the transition. The three main options are:

Parallel run. Both the plastic card and the digital pass are valid for a defined period — typically three to six months — after which the plastic card is deactivated. This is the lowest-risk approach and the most common for large programmes. Members switch at their own pace; you avoid the customer service spike that a hard cutover generates. The drawback is cost: you continue to run two systems in parallel, and some members never switch voluntarily.

Hard cutover. Announce an end date for plastic card validity — for example, “Plastic cards will be deactivated on 1 April.” Issue digital passes to all members in one batch via email. This is faster and cleaner, but it requires strong communication and a prepared customer service team to handle members who miss the transition deadline.

Soft migration (new members only). All new members receive digital passes from the migration date. Existing members are invited to switch but not required to. Over time — typically 12–18 months — the majority of active members are on digital. This is the gentlest approach but the slowest to reach full digital coverage.

The communication sequence

Regardless of which strategy you choose, the member communication sequence follows the same structure:

1. Announcement email (8 weeks out). Explain what is changing and why. Emphasise the benefits — balance never lost, always on your phone, notifications when you earn points. Include a preview image of the new digital pass.
2. Migration email (4 weeks out). “Your new digital card is ready — tap to add.” Include the “Add to Apple Wallet” and “Add to Google Wallet” buttons directly in the email. Points balance pre-loaded from your export.
3. 30-day reminder. To members who have not yet added the pass: “Your digital loyalty card is waiting. Add it in 10 seconds.”
4. 7-day final reminder. For programmes with a hard cutover date, send a final reminder one week before plastic cards are deactivated.
5. Personal outreach for high-value members. Identify your top 5–10% of members by spend or points balance. If they have not switched, a personal email from a loyalty manager — not a mass send — is worth the effort. These are your most valuable customers; losing them in the migration is a disproportionate risk.

Handling members without smartphones

Every membership programme has members who do not have a compatible smartphone or who are not comfortable adding passes to their wallet. Acknowledge this group in your planning — do not simply ignore them.

The most practical fallback is a web-based virtual card: a mobile-optimised web page that displays the member's name, number and barcode. No app required, no wallet setup — the member bookmarks the link. This is not as elegant as a wallet pass but it solves the access problem for the small percentage of members who need it.

Bulk migration with Issuepass

We support bulk pass creation via CSV import — upload your member export file and we generate a personalised wallet pass for every row. The migration email can be sent directly from our platform with the “Add to Wallet” buttons pre-generated for each member, or you can export the pass URLs and send them through your own email platform.

Points balances, tier names and expiry dates all map directly to pass fields in our template builder. Most loyalty programmes complete their data mapping and template configuration in under two hours.

Start free and migrate your first batch of members today.