Google Wallet is a great way to have access to your payment cards even if you left your wallet at home. But your wallet holds a lot more than just payment cards. Google Wallet can actually do this, too. There are tons of things you can digitally store with it besides your payment cards.
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Gift Cards
When people don’t know what to get you for your birthday, they often resort to gift cards. These things can pile up quickly, really fattening your wallet! Thankfully, this is one of the easiest things to add to your Google Wallet. Even if you have a dozen of the things, they don’t have to take up any space at all, and you can also use Google Wallet to keep notes about how much value each card has, when they expire, and much more.
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Loyalty Cards
The busier your social life, the more loyalty cards you probably have. Gym memberships, grocery stores, that one frozen yogurt place you like to frequent—these types of places and many more like to issue physical cards that you either need to access the business or to get special rewards for continuing to shop with them. It’s not that strange for people to accumulate a ton of loyalty cards, and it can be a hassle to keep up with them all.
With Google Wallet, you can organize all of these cards efficiently, taking up zero space in the physical world or your thoughts.
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Driver’s Licenses
Google Wallet can actually store all sorts of forms of identification, but your driver’s license is one of the most common. You use it almost anywhere you need to prove your age, for one. Now, unfortunately, you are only allowed to digitally store your driver’s license with Google Wallet in certain states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, and New Mexico.
Hopefully, the list of states where you’re allowed to do this will grow with time, but those are the rules for now. If you are in one of those lucky states, you can use Google Wallet to make sure you have your license with you at all times.
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Insurance Cards
Whether it’s health or car insurance, you are often issued a card of some sort to present to interested parties. Generally speaking, it’s a good idea to have these physical cards with you because sometimes, a digital copy may not be accepted. That said, it’s still a good idea to have these types of cards stored in Google Wallet for an extra layer of redundancy. The process of adding them can be a bit convoluted, but it’s possible nonetheless.
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Vaccination Records
Due to Covid-19, there are many situations in which you may need to prove to someone that you’ve been vaccinated. While you likely have a physical card to prove this, let’s be honest—who wants to carry that around all the time? Google Wallet allows you to create a digital copy of your vaccination card just like everything else, so it’s a great idea to make that copy and have it readily available at all times.
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Passports
Let me just say this upfront—in situations where you need a passport, you will often need to have your physical passport in your possession. That said, there are a few select scenarios where the digital “ID Pass” you can make on Google Wallet is sufficient. For example, it can be used as a form of ID in some cases, and some airports in the US will allow it for TSA checkpoints if you’re traveling domestically.
That said, while it never hurts to have a digital copy of your IDs in Google Wallet, I’d recommend bringing the physical copy too whenever you go on a trip.
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Student IDs
Going to college usually means having a student ID. You tend to need that to access various services around campus, from eating at the mess to gaining access to buildings. Losing your physical ID card can be a huge hassle, so making a digital copy in Google Wallet is a great idea. There are 64 countries and territories where you can save your student ID in Google Wallet and use it to access services.
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Transit and Boarding Passes
Public transport is a great way to get around, especially in cities. Generally speaking, you will need some sort of pass or card to make use of this public infrastructure, and that’s just one more card to crowd your physical wallet. Thankfully, you can add transit passes to Google Wallet as well. You are able to store and use transit passes from every major transit system in the United States, and adding them is extremely easy to do.
You can store boarding passes for transportation like trains and airplanes, too. The app can even update departure times and gates as they change, keeping you informed during travel.
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Event Tickets
Going to a theme park or a concert? Keeping track of tickets can be a pain, and they tend to get crumpled in your real wallet. Just store them with Google Wallet instead. Even if you were using some other app, why have one specific app for tickets when Google Wallet can store those and plenty more? Once your tickets have been used and you don’t need them anymore, you can remove them from Google Wallet with ease.
These aren’t even all of the things you can store in Google Wallet. You can even store things like hotel keys, corporate badges, and even car keys if you have select models of BMW. At any rate, Google Wallet is an excellent way to organize your many cards, tickets, and passes, provided you know how to add those things to it, though it’s pretty easy to do.
