Does Kohl’s Accept Apple Pay?

Kohl’s was a pioneering retailer and the first to integrate using Apple Pay in the stores back in 2015. But have they continued to support Apple Pay and will Kohl’s accept Apple Pay in 2022? 

Kohl’s does still accept Apple Pay and have gone further to allow their store cards and therefore loyalty cards to all be accepted via the Apple Pay system.

Join me as I go through the current state of Apple Pay and Kohl’s, as well as how it all got started and some tips for getting Apple Pay to work for you while you do your shopping.

Apple Pay and Kohl’s in 2022

Kohl’s continues to accept Apple Pay, and it must be working well for them as they have supported additional ways to use Apple Pay while also gaining rewards for doing so.

Apple Pay has been rolled out to every Kohl’s location in the United States for several years now, and you can even use the Apple Watch in-store to make payments as per Kohl’s own website.

Keep in mind that if you are a MVC or most valued customer, inside the Apple Wallet it will only show the standard Kohl’s card.

Further, if you’ve been added as an authorized user to a Kohl’s card, this means you won’t be able to add it to Apple Pay, you’ll need to be a primary or secondary user.

Either way, as Kohl’s spokesperson Julia Fennelly states, ‘You can … earn Yes2You loyalty points when you use Apple Pay to pay for Purchases at Kohl’s. You do not need to use Kohl’s app: Everything happens within Apple Pay’.

There are some murmurs that the need to select the Kohl’s loyalty card may be on the way out. As the Kohl’s card can’t be used at other retailers, some may find it a hassle to have to select the card out of several when making payments.

It is possible that eventually, a combination of the phone’s geolocation capabilities can mean that Apple Pay recognizes that you’re in a Kohl’s and so automatically selects the Kohl’s card for you, but this is not public information yet.

Fixing Payment Issues with Apple Pay

The first thing you should try is to open up the App Store, go to your account by clicking on your account picture at the top right, and then sign out.

Another method is to remove the card you are currently using and then register it again.

Sometimes Apple Pay’s terms of service get updated, and you must agree to them before you can use Apple Pay.  Open the Apple Pay app to see if you get prompted to agree to something. 

Look for any red text or lettering around the payment methods listed in your Apple Pay app, as that may demonstrate issues with the card itself, like an expired payment method.

As Apple Pay uses NFC (near field communication) to send the details, it is possible that something like your phone case is causing interference. Try removing the case and attempting the payment again.

Make sure your time and date settings are up to date, and I would recommend that you set them to automatic.

Look closely at your address details to confirm that there are no typos and that they match your actual address, commonly this will be abbreviations for words like street being input as St, which Apple Pay won’t recognize.

Kohl and Apple Pay: A Long History

Kohl’s was one of the first retailers to offer Apple Pay in-store, announcing the change in June 2015. While initially limited to cards from financial institutions, it then allowed store-branded cards to be used.

This meant that you could add your Kohl’s Charge Cards or other credit or debit cards and benefit both from the one-tap payment convenience, as well as earn Yes2You Rewards loyalty points with Apple Pay.

Kohl’s was actually the first retailer to offer this payment solution using Apple Pay.

Back in 2014, Kohl’s made huge investments in their mobile apps in order to integrate mobile shopping, payments, and loyalty schemes all work seamlessly together. This investment totaled over $1 billion but saw over 800% increase in customer engagement.

Indeed, Kohl’s seems to be quite ahead of the curve on this, as many retailers have still not fully embraced the mobile wallet, but as Mark Tack, VP of marketing at mobile marketing firm Vibes stated in 2015, retailers need to develop their apps while also using mobile wallets.