"Duplicate" Rewards Accounts because of Gift Cards

[nbunda]

An issue that causes so much confusion for our staff is duplicate rewards accounts that are created when a guest with an existing rewards account uses a gift card.

The next time they try to manually add rewards, the staff will see the guest listed twice. I've looked into this each time, and the second one is always linked to a gift card they had used. Now, when this happens, it appears the rewards balance is internally linked between the two accounts, which is good, but the staff has no way of verifying that, and it leads to frustration for the staff and guest. There has to be a way to do it better. I personally think the days of rewards balances being tied to physical gift cards should be left in the past.

It also creates a concern for me that if someone gets a hold of another person's gift card that happens to be linked to their loyalty account, a bad actor could potentially use the gift card to always have access to the original guest's rewards account.

Is this a concern/issue for anyone else? Is there something else I'm missing that causes this?

[au79teahouse]

Not being selectable as the option is greyed out?

[rcmck]

I wouldn't say fully greyed out, like when they don't have quite enough for a reward, just not selectable, I'll have to get some pictures or video next time.

[au79teahouse]

I just tested it, and it seems to be working as intended. That said, I do recall encountering a similar glitch to what you described, though it appears to be quite rare.

[rcmck]

Yeah it's very random, though I have been told it's happening more often.

[nbunda]

I did recently experience a similar issue. The guest clearly had a loyalty balance eligible for a reward, and the back end showed a reward available, but it could not be redeemed on the POS. I had to manually add and then remove 10 points in order for the redemption to become available on the POS