I used to have a huge key ring. Huge.

Not only did it have keys—but also a ton of rewards cards, those little bar-coded plastic money savers, bulking up my key ring. Putting it in my pocket was impossible.

So, when I got an iPhone, one of the first apps I downloaded was CardStar. The app allows a user to keep his/her loyalty numbers in one place with an interactive library of bar codes that can be scanned at checkout.

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Goodbye unwieldy key ring. Not only that, but I started using it for off-label uses, like storing my Society of Professional Journalists and library card info. In the two years I’ve been using it, the app caught up to these loopholes and added functions for libraries, etc.,  which is encouraging.

Not to say it’s a perfect app. Although my CVS Extracare and Oak Park Public Library barcodes scan smoothly, my Dominick’s and Jewel-Osco cards do not—in which case I hand over my phone and the cashier types in the number manually. Once, I even had a Jewel cashier look at me skeptically and say that management would not accept the app because,  “It’s like using a photocopy of your card.” But, she typed it in just the same and CardStar is so widely used now that most retailers aren’t thrown by it.

My use of the app is fairly basic: Mostly just the storage and use of numbers. This has gotten even easier now that CardStar has included a camera function that allows you to simply take a picture of the bar code on your cards, rather than enter the numbers manually. This has not fixed my Jewel or Dominick’s problem, however.

For more advanced users, CardStar now allows retailers to offer coupons and specials through its “Deals” tab and, for a few cards, you can even contact the business directly. For example, through my Delta Sky Miles account, the app will offer to dial Delta’s customer service center for me. In the “Extras” tab, users can also check in via FourSquare.

CardStar is one of the few apps I use almost every day and I look forward to future updates of practical, time- and space-saving app.

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