Google Pay can import airline miles, reward points, and more from Gmail now

Those of you who make contact-less payments on Android devices just got a nice new bonus feature to play with.

As spotted by 9to5Google on Monday, Google is rolling out a new Google Pay feature that should make life just a bit more convenient for anyone who uses the mobile wallet system. Thanks to a small update, Google Pay should now be able to link to Gmail and pull in things like airline miles, retail reward points, and hotel benefits that show up in your inbox from time to time.

According to 9to5Google, this can be enabled by going into Google Pay’s settings menu, heading over to the “General” tab, and turning on “Gmail Imports.”

Tech tipster Jane Manchun Wong found an early version of this feature back in February and posted screenshots on Twitter to show how it worked. 

This seems like something of a no-brainer for Google Pay, and could lead to people getting rewards and discounts they may not have utilized otherwise. Wong’s screenshot showed support for American Airlines, United Airlines, Best Buy, and more. 

This is yet another in a long line of recent upgrades (and downgrades) to Gmail in recent months, as the popular email service turns 15 years old. Google announced AMP for Gmail last month, which will make the kinds of promotional emails that might offer rewards and discounts more visually appealing, for example.

However, it hasn’t been entirely positive on the Gmail front lately. Google infamously killed support for its productivity-focused Inbox app, much to the chagrin of its most dedicated users. It also ended support for many IFTTT functions, which some power users utilized to make their Gmail experiences a bit less painful. 

As for Google Pay, it seems reasonable to assume it will only get more useful in the future. Contact-less payments are the new wave, with Apple recently announcing more support for Apple Pay in multiple major cities’ transit systems.