Bucks pubs try out pint-by-text scheme

Three Buckinghamshire pubs are trialling a scheme that lets punters buy friends a drink from a pub remotely via text-message vouchers.

Pint Drop lets customers buy a drink voucher for a friend online at www.pintdrop.com. The voucher is sent directly to their friend's mobile phone as a text message and is simply shown at the bar to claim the drink.

Vouchers worth between £3 and £5 can be bought.

The pub would input the code on the text into a special device, which resembles a credit-card machine and states the value of the voucher.

The amount is deducted from the cost of the round and the pub would claim the money back from Pint Drop at a later date.

The Bellevue in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, is one of the three pubs that have trialled the vouchers.

Punch lessee Alan Hedgecock said he was approached by the father-and-son team behind Pint Drop to trial it this month, with plans to roll it out nationally.

Although nobody has yet used the scheme in his pub, he said the regulars are "quite interested in it".

"I think it's got good potential," he added.

Hedgecock said he was not charged for the code-input machine during the trial, although there are plans to rent them out to pubs as the scheme is rolled out further.

Martin Stewart, who devised Pint Drop with his son William, told a local paper: "It only really works on a national basis and I am talking with breweries about joining with their outlets.

"We would not want every outlet in a town to be involved, otherwise the outlets would not get the benefit."