discount duel

The Belly Card vs. the Go Local Card: Choose your own reward or let the businesspick?

I love a good deal. Especially when a store I love has those little keychain cards.

I was out and about on an assignment when I stumbled upon an iPad at the Garden District coffee shop on South Congress. Behind it were a stack of blue cards (complete with keychain companions) with the word Belly. It looked complicated, so I almost avoided it. But then I learned it was a rewards program. Kind of like Go Local.

Sort of.

The Belly card just got $10 million in funding and it's in six cities, including Austin. The Chicago-based start up is a free universal loyalty program meant to give a “kick in the pants” to other rewards programs.

The cards are free, and at the 1,400 merchants who have already signed up for Belly, customers can scan their cards (or use their iPhone/Android apps) to keep track of points.

The barista at Garden District said she and about two or three other merchants along South Congress were using Belly instead of Go Local because you can choose the kinds of rewards your points can be redeemed for.

E.B. Boyd, writing for Fast Company, described Belly this way: “It's no longer the generic ‘buy 10, get one free.’ Rather, merchants can choose to offer something unusual they think their customers would actually like. Some actual examples: A sandwich store will name a sandwich after you. A grocery store will let you cut in line. And a comic book store will let customers who make 50 purchases punch a store employee in the gut.”

Well, that sounds... different. It sounds a lot more fun, actually, than my little Go Local card, but then, I did resist buying one for awhile. The Go Local card costs $15 bucks (it used to be $10) and buys you a year worth of rewards at participating local stores like free chai at Sugar Mama’s Bakeshop with a purchase or 5 percent off at Torchy’s Tacos. Go Local is in 17 cities and the majority of those are in Texas.

The Go Local card asks you to make an investment up front. If you remember to use your card or your iPhone app (there’s no app for Androids, unfortunately) you can make back the money you spend on the card, so there's incentive to use it. A lot of local businesses participate in Go Local, too, including the Alamo Drafthouse, The Highball, Snack Bar and the Children’s Museum.

It’s the same kind of investment that happens when you’re like me and totally in love with punch cards. I realized recently that I typically spend roughly $40 to get a big free cup of coffee at Jo’s Hot Coffee – Good Food. It helps that the staff is always really nice to me.

There’s something nice about the fact that Go Local doesn’t operate on a point-based system, since, frankly, I get enough of a headache trying to keep track of my airplane mileage for points there. That’s one of the drawbacks of Belly, if you find keeping track of your points kind of annoying.

If you get the app (I didn’t want another one), you can keep track of it on your phone. If you get the paper card, you can scan it on the iPad at the merchant’s cash register and log in to your account from a computer. Since I can barely remember to do all this for accounts that have nothing to do with getting free stuff, it makes sense that I have left the “Reset Password” email in my inbox unread for a week.

I also really want to love Belly. The card is cute. They’re the newer kid on the block compared to Go Local, and they’ve spread to dozens of cities with stores from coast to coast. Of course, iPads are hypnotizing, especially when you’re a relatively new smartphone convert (as I am.) Better than all of this is that it’s free to the consumer.

But I can’t figure out how the rewards program helps the local economy, which is what matters to me more than getting to punch somebody in the gut or having a sandwich named in my honor. Until I can figure out if using Belly is better for Austin’s independent business owners or not, I don’t have much incentive to use it as much as I use the Go Local card.

Since Belly is free and Go Local is not, there’s no harm in having them both and getting as many rewards as possible.

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Red Light

San Antonio leads Texas on ending horse-drawn carriage rides by 2030

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Horses will no longer pull carriages on the streets of downtown San Antonio.

San Antonio has pulled off something that the rest of Texas has yet to do, but it didn't come without some contentious conversations. City Council has unanimously voted (with one abstention) to phase out the use of horse-drawn carriages over the next five years. That means by January 1, 2030, there will be none on the streets at all; instead, there will be electric carriages.

These plans have been in the making since 2022 — if not always at the same level of intensity — when District 2 Councilmember Jalen McKee-Rodriguez and District 3 Councilmember Phyllis Viagran wrote up some concerns about the horses' wellbeing. A special session at the end of October 2024 hinted to San Antonians that the end for this practice was neigh — sorry, nigh — and the final vote was made on December 12. In addition to accepting the plan, it extended its timeframe by two years.

The initial proposal included worries about the horses' exposure to traffic and pollution, as well how their presence might exacerbate those issues for the environment at large by slowing traffic. It also raised concerns about the effects of standing or walking on hard surfaces for too long, or spending time in extreme weather.

At the December 12 meeting, San Antonians gave impassioned speeches about animal welfare — both to call attention to the need for better conditions and to defend the reputations and jobs of current horse drivers — but it wasn't the first time the council heard from the public about the issue.

In a prior city survey, 50,476 respondents weighed in. Of those respondents, 51.98 percent said they liked the idea to "Transition horse-drawn carriages to electric carriages and pedicabs and ban horse drawn carriages completely." There were alternative solutions listed, but respondents were less drawn to them.

A cultural divide emerged in the data and continued in the December meeting: some people avoided the carriages because they worried about the treatment of the horses, while others enjoyed them because of their historical echoes and living legacy. Many speakers in favor of the plan used this to form their argument, raising questions about history versus progress.

More tangible objections to the plan hinged on the businesses — specifically five companies — and jobs that would be lost, which was the main factor behind extending the adjustment period.

Discussions about the particulars of the electric vehicles are still to come, as confirmed in the discussion near the end of the meeting. Councilmember Jalen McKee-Rodriguez addressed concerns about what would happen to the horses, mentioning the Brady Hunter Foundation as a future partner in finding them rescue homes.

Some council members also brought up rhetorical questions about animal exploitation by groups like Sea World, the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo, military and police forces, and even various groups in the Fiesta parade, although these did not come with a formal motion to pick the issues up.

This decision could have a ripple effect on other Texas cities. Dallas has recently considered a similar ban, but it appears to have stalled; Austin's attempts at a ban have been unsuccessful, but according to the Austin-American Statesman, only one operator is permitted to bring horses downtown. She declines to do so because the long hours are unfair to her and the horses. Houston does have horse-drawn carriages, and there seems to be little conversation about banning them.

Cities like Chicago and Salt Lake City have led the charge in the United States with some of the most prominent successful bans. Other cities around the world with bans include Brussels and Guadalajara, which both switched to electric models. Bans that have been around for years, like Guadalajara's and Prague's, still aren't out of the woods — people are still pushing back on the decision, so it sounds like San Antonio still has much work cut out for it.

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