Can a loyalty card in a phone be read by tap?
Yes, where the till has been built for it. The platforms let a reader ask for a loyalty pass in the same session as a payment, so one tap can settle the purchase and the points, but the merchant has to have arranged both sides.
One tap, two things
Apple's payment reader framework documents it directly: a reader session can read a payment card, read a loyalty pass, or read a payment card together with a loyalty request, stopping at the loyalty result if that is what the till wants.
From the customer's side that is one gesture where there used to be two, which is the entire value. The familiar sequence of presenting a loyalty card, putting it away and presenting a payment card is what this removes.
The pass itself is an ordinary wallet pass rather than a payment credential, which is why it can be issued by a shop without the machinery a payment card needs.
What it needs to exist
A till that asks. The request is made by the reader, so a shop whose terminal never asks for a loyalty pass will never get one, however many passes its customers hold.
A pass the wallet recognises as belonging to that merchant, which means the shop has issued it through the platform's pass mechanism rather than as a picture of a barcode.
And a payment path that supports the combined session, which for a phone acting as the till is the framework the taking payments page describes, with the same provider and entitlement requirements.
The other platform
On Android the same outcome is reached through card emulation rather than a dedicated reader framework: the wallet registers the application identifiers for the loyalty scheme in the category meant for everything that is not payment, and the reader selects it as it would any other application.
The consequence is the same one as for payment: one service answers, and which one is decided by the platform's routing rather than at the till, which the which card page covers.
A phone can therefore hand over a loyalty identity and a payment credential in one presentation, and it is the reader that decides whether it asked for both.
Whether it is worth it
For a shop with its own tills and a real loyalty scheme, the saved gesture is measurable at the queue and the enrolment rate is the thing to watch.
For everyone else, a barcode in a wallet does the same job with no agreement, no provisioning and no reader change, which is the trade the tap or barcode page sets out for tickets and which lands the same way here.
And the identity that travels is a loyalty membership rather than a payment credential, so treat it as data about a customer: what the till learns, keeps and joins to a purchase is a question the landing page page asks of every tap.
Frequently asked questions
Does one tap pay and collect points?
Where the till asks for both, yes. The reader can request a loyalty pass in the same session as the payment.
Why does my loyalty pass never get read?
Almost always because the terminal does not ask. The request comes from the reader, not from the phone.
Is a loyalty pass a payment credential?
No. It is an ordinary wallet pass, which is why a shop can issue one without the arrangements a payment card requires.
Is a barcode good enough?
For most schemes yes, and it needs no agreement with a platform. A tap wins where queue time is measured and the shop owns its tills.