Best Buy Starts Accepting Apple Pay In-Store

Best Buy started allowing in-store acceptance of Apple Pay and other NFC payment methods such as Android Pay. Best Buy already accepted Apple Pay for in-app purchases since April and they promised then that it would be rolled out in-stores as well. Their agreements for MCX expired at the end of August paving the way for the NFC roll out in September.

According to a Best Buy employee’s comment, it will be fully rolled out by the end of September and reports on Reddit indicate that it’s already working in some Best Buy stores in CA.

Apple’s list of merchants is not yet showing Best Buy, but there are reportedly many merchants not found on that list, such as Rite Aid, as well.

Discover + Apple Pay

Of course, on our mind is the huge Discover promo going on which offers 10% back on all in-store Apple Pay purchases. This Best Buy development is great both for the purchases of gift cards (if those will work for the Discover promo) and the purchase of ordinary products.

  • Gift Card Best Buy has a wide variety of gift cards which they sell, including gas and restaurant gift cards, and they recently added eBay gift cards as well. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to find Visa gift cards. They apparently stopped selling Amazon gift cards. See Everything you ever wanted to know about Buying Gift Cards at Best Buy to find out, well, everything you want to know about buying gift cards at Best Buy. [The more creative may find this post interesting as well, although I don’t know exactly how that will work with NFC payments.]
  • Buying Merchandise Yeah, yeah, we all know that Best Buy doesn’t always have the best prices, but you may not know that they do offer a Price Match Guarantee and will match the prices of: Amazon.com, Bhphotovideo.com, Crutchfield.com, Dell.com, HP.com, Newegg.com, and TigerDirect.com. They also match all local retail competitors (including their online prices) and they’ll match a bestbuy.com price for in-store purchase. If you have a large electronic purchase you intended to make on Amazon, for example, consider going in-store to Best Buy for a price match and paying for the purchase with Apple Pay to take advantage of the promo. (Remember to look into what credit card protections are offered by Discover before boxing yourself into using Discover to make the purchase.)
  • Reselling Merchandise This one isn’t my expertise, but I assume reselling deals come occasionally for Best Buy. You may also be able to use their Price Match Guarantee to get a worthwhile reselling deal.

Bear in mind, however, that by making the purchase in-store at Best Buy, you will be losing out on the shopping portal rewards. (Best Buy does not seem to give a pay-in-store option for in-store pickup orders.)

HT: macrumors
    Chuck
  • On September 21, 2015, 11:00

View Comments (12)

  • Just a heads up, I tried a couple Best Buy stores and was not successful in using Apple Pay because the employees had no idea. I finally figured out you have to touch your phone in the lower left of the terminal. Some places I've just had to get my phone a couple inches away and it works, at Best Buy I actually had to touch the terminal.

  • Any specific data on which Best Buy stores are currently taking Apple Pay in store. Tried 2 in So Cal and neither take Apple Pay yet.

  • In my local store they recently STOPPED selling Ebay gc. I was told they will no longer sell Ebay or Visa gc.

    • No, $200 is the max denomination. And some Best Buy stores have a daily limit of 5 cards, or $1000, or whatever they decide based upon the manager guidance of the day, so don't overdo it and spread out your purchases over time to avoid burning this option.

  • My local Best Buy has been out of Visa GCs for months. But last week a cashier told me they have a new version in the back. She said they say 2016 on them and they haven't received activation codes yet so they can't sell them. She said she suspects they'll be ready for Black Friday.

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