As submitted to http://acanac.org/blogs/geek/

I came across a post earlier this evening that really got me thinking.  I have a lot of loyalty cards in my wallet.  You know what loyalty cards are, right?  They are those little credit card sized cards what identify you to a particular retailers loyalty program.  For example, in my wallet I have an AirMiles card, a Marriott Rewards card, a Starwood Preferred Guest card, and that is just to name a few.  They really bulk up my wallet to the point where I am probably doing damage to my spine just having the wallet in my back pocket.  I guess I am a very loyal customer.  Often I find myself removing them from said wallet and just not having them when I need them.  I realize that I am doing myself a very big injustice by not having the cards with me.  Imagine how much free stuff I am losing out on.  It's out of control.

In the particular post that I read, which you can find over at tisgoud.nl, it was brought to my attention that I don't need to have all of those cards is my wallet.  Now the answer is painfully obvious, so make sure you are sitting down for this.  If you own an iPhone (I don't) or some other similar device with a sizable screen, you can take a picture of your card and place it on the device.  In most cases the retailer will only need the number, however even if it has a barcode on it, the lasers can scan a barcode from an LCD display.  I borrowed an image from the aforementioned blog just to demonstrate how simplistic it really is.  Imagine how many cards you can eliminate from your wallet, by simply adding them to your cell.  This is great.  Now I just have to get me an iPhone!