As part of our daily routine when leaving the house, we all go through the same basic ritual. Keys? Check! Phone? Check! Wallet? Check! While all are important for daily survival, the latter two can be combined to make your life a little easier when it comes to certain purchases, thanks to the Wallet feature built into your Nokia Lumia 920, Lumia 820, or Lumia 620 smartphone.
What does Wallet store?
Open your wallet and take a look inside. You’ll probably find credit, debit, loyalty, and membership cards, as well as some coupons. Those same items can be stored digitally on your Nokia Lumia.
By saving your credit and debit card details to the Wallet feature you can purchase apps from within the Windows Phone Store with any account you’ve saved; just select the option at the checkout. This can be useful when you’re trying to keep an eye on your finances and know you’ve got more money in one account, than another.
If you’re a regular shopper at a particular store, the chances are you own a loyalty card. Save the details on your phone so that next time you shop at the store, and forget your loyalty card, you’ll have all the details at hand.
Wallet is also great for storing membership card details. If you’re a member of a movie rental store, a vehicle recovery company, or just a library, you can store your membership number on your phone in one easy to view place.
For the more thrifty people, including me, using vouchers wisely can often see you shaving a couple of quid off the end of your grocery bill. If you have any coupons, add it to your wallet. You can set a reminder for when it expires, too, so they never silently expire – unlike the coupons you cut from a newspaper.
In addition to all of these, you can also add your PayPal account details and any Microsoft gift cards that you may have. Both of these will allow you to make purchases from within Windows Phone Store.
How to add credit/debit card details
Firstly, locate the Wallet feature from the application list in your Nokia Lumia and launch it.
You’ll be welcomed by the All pane and it’s here that you begin to store all your card details.
If you press the + (add) icon at the bottom of the screen you can select what you want to add; credit or debit card, Microsoft gift card, PayPal, or other.
If you’re adding a new credit or debit card, you’ll need to decide whether or not you want to use that card for purchases in Windows Phone Store. Selecting yes will let you do just that the next time you’re trying to download games, music or apps. Selecting no will just save the card into your wallet.
When you add a new card, you’ll also need to enter all the usual details such as card number, billing address and other important information.
You can add loyalty card and membership information in the other section. There are some apps that work alongside Wallet, such as FidMe, or Plyce, and these apps will pull in the membership information automatically into Wallet. Otherwise, you can add a card manually.
The following form will prompt you to add details about the membership, such as the name of the card, card issuer, cardholder, and the account number. Fill in as much information as you can, but those mentioned here are probably the most basic of information you’ll need.
By adding your PayPal details you’ll just need to login as you would if you were to login at your computer. Afterwards, you’ll probably be prompted to download the PayPal app from Windows Phone Store for future use – you may as well as it’s quite handy.
By sliding the screen to the left or right you’ll enter the deals screen. It’s here that you can add those coupons to get some money off at stores. To add a coupon,just press the plus icon at the bottom.
Add as much information as you can so you can easily identify it at a later date. If the coupon is for 10% off a pair of shoes, name it that. If you fill in the merchant info, you’ll know exactly where to go to use the coupon.
Be sure to fill in the deal details to include the coupon code and also the expiry date of that coupon. Upon saving, you’ll find the add reminder option at the bottom of the screen, where you’ll be able to add the reminder details into your calendar.
When the time comes to use that coupon, you can hand over the coupon details – such as coupon code – to the vendor at the checkout.
Any one of these cards or coupons can be saved to you Start screen as a tile, ready to launch with just a tap. Alternatively, you can open the wallet and find all the cards and coupons there.
For those worried about security and people looking through your phone, there’s the option to add a pin code to your entire wallet. If somebody clicks on any of the Start screen tiles, a pin code entry screen will greet them. You can also use the same pin within the Windows Phone Store to stop people from downloading apps, music or games without you knowing.
Have you used Wallet on your Nokia Lumia? Tell us how you’re using it, in the comments box below.
image credit: smalljude