It works at plenty of PP lounges; and if it can’t scan for whatever reason, they can key in the info in the same way they do when the mag stripes on the cards fail to work or when the lounge scanners go down. They want the PP number to load and use that number to get a more real-time feedback approval from Collison/PP. This is why expired cards can be made to work too — although it sometimes has helped to damage the mag stripe and scrub off the expiration date so as to reduce the chance of pushback over a date noted on the card itself.