Loyalty punch-cards

A punch-card turns visits into a reward: "6 visits → a free dessert". Diners collect punches when you check them in, and a full card mints a reward that sits in their wallet until they choose to use it at your restaurant. One thing makes it trustworthy: once a diner holds your card, its terms are a promise — they can't be quietly changed underneath them.

How it works

1. Create your card under Specials → Punch card: how many visits (the threshold), what the reward is, and any fine print — plus a look (color theme, icon, or a photo background).
2. Publish it. From then on, diners who save their visit start collecting punches.
3. Punches come from a check-in. Ask the diner for their 4-digit code and enter it under Operations → Check in — one tap punches every card they're collecting. A signed-in diner's confirmed in-app order also counts. See Check diners in.
4. Diners watch it fill in the chat's deals page, and can see all their cards from any restaurant in their own punch-card wallet.
5. A full card mints a reward into the diner's wallet, with your exact terms frozen into it — reward, description, and fine print as they stood at that moment.

How a reward gets used

The diner spends it themselves; there is no staff "redeem" button.

1. The diner is checked in at your restaurant (any check-in in the last 3 hours), opens their rewards, and taps Use this now.
2. It appears on your Dashboard — a banner naming the diner and the reward, then a "Rewards used today" list underneath.
3. You hand it over. Tap Done to clear the banner; that's a dismissal, not a claim that you served it.
4. If something's wrong, tap Decline — that returns the reward to the diner rather than burning it. You can decline until the end of your restaurant's day (at least 3 hours), which covers reconciling at close.

Only the diner can spend their own reward, and only while they're standing in your restaurant. That's deliberate: a reward nobody can spend on the diner's behalf can't be spent by mistake, and one they never get around to using is still sitting there next visit.

Changing a published card

• Looks are always editable — theme, icon, photo, and your internal nickname save in place.
• Terms (visits, reward, fine print) depend on holders. If nobody has started your card yet, edit freely. Once diners hold it, changing terms publishes a new version — existing holders keep earning and redeeming on the card they were promised until it winds down (at least 30 more days), while new diners join the new one.
• Winding down: inside the editor you can stop new sign-ups (existing holders keep earning) or end the card — holders then get a 30-day window to claim an earned reward. You can extend that window any time if someone's about to lose a reward they earned.

Good to know

• A visit counts once per diner per 6 hours, so a regular who pops in twice in an afternoon earns one punch — and a diner who both orders in-app and hands over a code still earns one.
• Punches need an account. A diner only collects if they've saved their visit (a quick email code). Anonymous chat still works; it just doesn't count.
• The diner is shown before anything is written. Typing a code brings up their name to confirm first, so a mistyped code doesn't punch a stranger.
• Rewards keep the terms they were minted with, even if you've since published different ones — including the fine print, because the diner now reads it themselves.
• Rewards don't expire in a hurry. A reward lives until your card's end date, or 12 months if the card has no end date — long enough for "I'm saving this for Christmas".
• Each version shows as #1, #2, … to diners and staff, so "which card do they hold?" always has a clear answer. The card history page shows how each version performed — punches issued, rewards redeemed, diners enrolled.
• Visit counts outlive cards. A diner's total visits to your restaurant keep counting even between programs — "you've visited 12 times" is always true.
• One live card at a time per restaurant.
• Staff see the card read-only — editing terms is for owners and managers. Checking diners in and declining a reward are staff jobs.