You’ll soon be able to instantly apply Play Points to in-app purchases
You might be surprised to learn that it’s been almost four years since Google rolled Play Points out in the first markets. This loyalty program awards points for buying content and installing apps, but using the points usually requires some foresight. Google says it’s planning to make Play Points usable for in-app purchases right in the checkout workflow.
If you’re anything like me, you don’t pay much attention to how many points you’ve accumulated, but maybe you should. You can check your Play Points balance in the Play Store—tap your account profile, and points should be displayed near the top. Depending on how much you spend in Google’s ecosystem, you get a set number of points between 1.1 and 1.4 for each dollar spent. The value of the points varies a bit depending on promotions and whatnot, but the value is just a few percent of your spending.
Currently, you can redeem points for account credit, coupons, and in-game content from the Play Store client. The upcoming revamp will let you apply points toward purchases on the spot. In the animation above, you can see 999 points counted as $9.99 for an in-app purchase. Google says you will be able to use points for an entire purchase or split it with another payment method.
This feature will come to all Play Points markets in the coming weeks. However, you might want to check out the redemption tab in the Play Store as there could be better deals in there for specific content.
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