More often than not, people are confronted with the “Do you have our membership card?” question at the point of purchase. Often followed by the “Would you like to sign up for one?” should the answer be no.

Depending on your shopping habits, your wallet may be stuffed with all these loyalty cards. They all have benefits - for the companies that offer them anyways. They track your spending habits and sell the data to marketers, but that practice is besides the point.

What I’d like to address is the sheer number of these cards out there. Not good for the environment. So why not consolidate them all, and enable the carrier with some tracking data as well?

Basically this all-in-one card would be issued to you by a single entity that would store all your basic info anonymously - like your address and phone number - common information that is requested by all these other cards.

You would then carry this card with you and when prompted to join one of these card-based memberships, you can then offer your card and say “Sure, sign me up.” At which point your ‘all-in-one’ card is scanned and you are added to that store’s database instantly. No forms to fill out, nothing to sign, no temporary cards issued.

This card enables you to join all kinds of reward programs without carrying the extra plastic. Sort of like using the ‘Facebook’ login at numerous websites, or a Passport.

Not only does this save plastic, but a few headaches during the transaction trying to hunt down that one card you need.

This card would also enable the User to login on a website and track all transactions, and monitor how many programs have been joined, how points/miles earned, etc.

Another thing I would like to see as a result, are chains competing for your business. Say you have a hotel memberships at Best Western and Ramada. Upon check-in at Best Western, they’d be alerted to your frequent business at other chains (it’s not disclosed where), and may try to woo your business with aggressive discounts or upgrades.

This would only be good for reward programs and memberships, not for credit cards or debit use - I’d like to keep the finances partitioned.

If all the major chains decided to consolidate their programs into this one card, they’d save money too. Eventually they could ‘grandfather’ out existing cards.