One BonusGift cards, club cards and membership cards
Updated 31 August 2026
Three cards that get called each other constantly and behave nothing alike. A gift card is prepaid money, a club card is a standing right to a discount, and a membership card is access. Choosing the wrong one is how a business ends up with an obligation it did not intend.
Gift card — money you have already been paid
The buyer pays now and someone else spends later, which makes it the only card on this page that improves cash flow rather than costing margin. A share is never redeemed at all, and redemptions frequently exceed the card value.
The catch is that it is a liability on your books until it is spent, and it is worth the full amount to the holder — so it should not be discounted at purchase without deliberately deciding to.
Club card — a standing discount, and its problem
A club card gives its holder a permanent right to a lower price. It is easy to explain and instantly popular, and it is the version most likely to quietly hollow out a business: the discount is paid on every visit the customer would have made anyway, forever, with no mechanism to stop.
If you want a permanent benefit, a tier earned over time does the same job while remaining conditional on the customer continuing to buy.
Membership card — access rather than price
Access to a place, a service window, priority, or a category of goods. It suits gyms, clubs, wholesale and anything with a subscription underneath, and it is the only one of the three where the card itself can be the product being sold.
Which one you probably want
For most retail and hospitality: a bonus or stamp mechanic rather than any of these, because it rewards the behaviour instead of granting a permanent right. Add gift cards if people buy your product as a present. Reserve membership for when access genuinely is the offer.
On One Bonus these all sit on the same member card, so a customer does not carry a second piece of plastic to hold a gift balance or a level.
Common questions
What is the difference between a gift card and a loyalty card?
A gift card is money paid up front by one person for another to spend. A loyalty card records what a customer has earned by buying. One is prepayment, the other is a reward — and only the second gives anyone a reason to return.
Is a club card a good idea?
Rarely. It grants a permanent discount on visits the customer would have made anyway, with no way to withdraw it later. A tier earned over time gives the same feeling of status while staying conditional on continued spending.
Do gift cards make money?
They help cash flow, since you are paid before you deliver, and redemptions often exceed the card value. Against that, the unspent balance is a real liability until it is used or expires.
Keep every card on one member card
Read next
- Bonus cardsPoints, stamps, levels and discounts explained, and why a wallet full of plastic bonus cards stops working. One Bonus is one card every shop on the network reads.
- Digital loyalty cardWhat replaces plastic: a card in the wallet app, scanned by QR or NFC at the counter. No reprints, no lost card, and the balance survives a new phone.
- Loyalty appWhy a standalone shop app gets deleted, and what a shared network app does instead: every balance, stamp, level and coupon from every shop in one live view.
- Plastic or digitalPrinting, reissuing, the cards left at home, and what a card in the phone changes. The comparison a business actually needs before ordering plastic.