As 2020 ends, so does Samsung Pay's rewards program

Samsung Pay has a few benefits over Google Pay. It supported MST, a contactless solution popular in the U.S. It's the default on Samsung phones, so some of the most popular phones in the world, and it had its own rewards program. With Samsung Pay rewards, you could accrue points and then redeem them towards gift cards, raffles, and more. That's set to change soon.

Samsung Pay is losing its rewards program at the end of the year, the company shared in an email obtained by Android Police.

Via the email, Samsung told its customers the following:

As of 12/31/2020 at 11:59 PM PST, you will no longer earn Rewards points for Samsung Pay transactions and gift card purchases. This also means that Samsung Rewards Tiers no longer hold any benefits and we will be ending our Tier program for the time being. However, points can still be earned at Galaxy Store, Samsung.com, Shop app and with other Samsung services and applications.

If you did use Samsung Pay's rewards program, this is likely to strike as a disappointing change. As Samsung's phones run Android, you're not out of options. If you're in the U.S. or India, the new Google Pay does have a rewards program of its own. Samsung had already neutered Samsung Pay rewards with an earlier change in 2018, resulting in the points you could earn being slashed in half across all tiers. At least now it's not an issue to worry about anymore.