Nobody really loses a coupon. They find it three days after it expired, which amounts to the same thing.
ONEWallet has two kinds of reminder for exactly this problem, and they cover different halves of it: one watches the calendar, the other watches the door.
The countdown: D-Day
Give a card an expiry date and it starts counting down. The card shows how many days are left, and the notification arrives before it lapses rather than after.
Worth setting on:
- Coupons and vouchers — the classic case, and the one that stings.
- Gift certificates — usually a year out, which is exactly long enough to forget.
- Event and movie tickets — the countdown doubles as a reminder that the date is coming.
- Memberships — a nudge before the renewal, not after the charge.
The nudge: location
A date only helps if you happen to look. A place helps when you weren't thinking about it at all.
Attach a location to a card and ONEWallet can surface it when you arrive. Since version 3.4.2 you can search by place name instead of dropping a pin on a map, so putting your neighborhood café on your stamp card takes a few seconds.
The pairings that earn their keep:
- Stamp card → the café, so you stop missing the stamp you're actually collecting.
- Supermarket points → the store, rather than remembering at the register.
- Gym membership → the gym, though the home screen widget handles that one too.
A reminder is only useful if it arrives while you can still act on it.
Keeping them quiet enough to trust
Reminders lose their power the moment there are too many of them. Two rules keep them worth reading:
- Set expiry dates only on cards that genuinely expire. A permanent membership card doesn't need a countdown.
- Give locations to the two or three cards you actually forget — not to the whole wallet.
The point of all of it
A card you can't find is bad. A card you find too late is worse. Reminders are the cheapest way to make sure neither one is your problem.
