If you use JR East regularly a BIC CAMERA VIEW card is the best investment you can make. So I was pleasantly surprised when the Crecolle (credit-kore) site posted a very useful piece about using Bic Camera VIEW card and Apple Pay. I love it when Japanese credit card sites analyze every reward point possibility in detail. The deep dives are always surprisingly useful.

BIC CAMERA VIEW is a dual function card that grafts a VIEW credit card with a Suica. The Suica part works just like any plastic Suica. The only difference is that users can setup the VIEW card part to auto-charge the Suica part at a VIEW kiosk, they can also setup the VIEW to auto-charge a completely separate plastic Suica, very handy. BIC CAMERA VIEW is also a BIC CAMERA store point card. When you add it to Apple Pay only the credit card function is added as QUICPay. The card comes in VISA and JCB credit flavors, mine is JCB so I can recharge my Wallet Suica with Apple Pay.

To test BIC CAMERA POINT reward rates, the Crecolle staff ran 4 purchase patterns with the same battery item:

1. Apple Pay BIC CAMERA VIEW QUICPay
2. Apple Pay BIC CAMERA VIEW QUICPay + showing the plastic card for BIC CAMERA reward points
3. BIC CAMERA VIEW (plastic credit)
4. BIC CAMERA VIEW (plastic Suica)

The return rates printed on the receipts showed the following:

1. 1% BIC CAMERA POINTS
2. 8% BIC CAMERA POINTS
3. 10.5% BIC CAMERA POINTS
4. 11.5% BIC CAMERA POINTS

So the lesson here is that if you want maximum points when buying at BIC CAMERA, use the plastic VIEW Suica. Why the big differences? The 8% vs 10% difference is the Apple Pay margin. The #1 and #2 difference between Apple Pay VIEW QUICPay by itself and showing the plastic card is simply that the BIC CAMERA point card is not hosted on Apple Pay as a NFC VAS rewards card. If it was you could do what you do at LAWSON: say ‘Apple Pay’ so that the purchase amount is rewarded via NFC VAS to a dPOINT card or PONTA card in Wallet. The #3 and #4 difference is the benefit of using Suica SF and the JR East Suica float in action bypassing the credit card companies. This last difference is the same force driving endless QR Code payment app campaigns, QR players bypass credit card network margins and pass the benefits to customers.

There is one pattern the Crecolle staff did not test: Apple Pay BIC CAMERA QUICPay and showing the BIC CAMERA App barcode point card, this gives the same 8% but without showing any plastic.