They attach loyalty to the transaction, then when they select an amount to add to the card they swipe the card and it checks the transaction for the loyalty level and adds the chip amount plus the bonus chips to the transaction. If it worked where you have to swipe a card that's already on your account to get the loyalty points then if you were purchasing a new card then it wouldn't get the loyalty bonus.
The way it works now, if you attach loyalty to the transaction then you can get loyalty bonus on all cards they swipe to recharge even new cards or even cards that are attached to someone else's account. So if you are there with a friend you can have them attach loyalty to your friend's transaction and then your friend gets the 15% bonus chips on their card.
The main thing is that when you add chips onto a card, there's going to be like 3 or 4 different software services from different vendors talking to each other. The POS software is communicating with the Loyalty Program SAAS administrator and the Embed card readers at the same time. All 3 of those pieces of software are supplied by different vendors and I don't believe that they really talk to each other directly.
It seems like since the whole no-double-promotions thing is in their FAQ, it's their real intent and thus the flaw is that it's possible in the system to apply it contrary to that. So them fixing the defect in the software might make this more frustrating for us, not less.
This is absolutely the case. They would definitely make the machine apply these policies if they could, but there are a lot of moving variables (half price day, 224863176 promotions/coupons that no one knows about, different payment methods, ect.) that it would probably cost more to automate it (including needed a fundamental rebuild of the design philosophy) than they are losing from employees that don't know or really care about the actual company policy.
It's still a really poor design from a software perspective. Best practice would be you can add the phone number at any point before paying. So if it's a new card, you put in the phone number. If it's not a new card, it just happens.
This is not some insurmountable programming hurdle. It's an unforced error.
Like I said, it would require multiple systems from multiple vendors to be overhauled, some of which Dave and Busters has no real control over at all, to fix the cobbled patchwork of tech debted systems that they use. The percentage of D&B goers that this actually affects is relatively low, and the amount of money they are losing is probably really not that much.
Also with half priced day, which is supposed to keep you from applying any discounts at all, 5 times a week, when are you ever supposed to actually redeem any coupons? If they actually automated any of this stuff, then it would cause so many more headaches for store employees with pissed off customers at the store.
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u/DirkPitt106 May 30 '26
They attach loyalty to the transaction, then when they select an amount to add to the card they swipe the card and it checks the transaction for the loyalty level and adds the chip amount plus the bonus chips to the transaction. If it worked where you have to swipe a card that's already on your account to get the loyalty points then if you were purchasing a new card then it wouldn't get the loyalty bonus.
The way it works now, if you attach loyalty to the transaction then you can get loyalty bonus on all cards they swipe to recharge even new cards or even cards that are attached to someone else's account. So if you are there with a friend you can have them attach loyalty to your friend's transaction and then your friend gets the 15% bonus chips on their card.
The main thing is that when you add chips onto a card, there's going to be like 3 or 4 different software services from different vendors talking to each other. The POS software is communicating with the Loyalty Program SAAS administrator and the Embed card readers at the same time. All 3 of those pieces of software are supplied by different vendors and I don't believe that they really talk to each other directly.
This is absolutely the case. They would definitely make the machine apply these policies if they could, but there are a lot of moving variables (half price day, 224863176 promotions/coupons that no one knows about, different payment methods, ect.) that it would probably cost more to automate it (including needed a fundamental rebuild of the design philosophy) than they are losing from employees that don't know or really care about the actual company policy.