So you’ve mapped out where all the best sales are going to be. You think you’re ready for Black Friday? Not so fast. You could be leaving money on the table. Check your Twitter feed before you head out. Twitter Inc.’s latest feature makes its online platform relevant to offline shoppers.

Twitter Offers is a new advertising product that allows brands to offer special promotions through Twitter. It’s particularly useful to retailers because the discount is automated, so it’s not necessary to train employees on special redemption procedures. The process is very straight forward. Advertisers who purchase Promoted Tweets can attach a Twitter Offer. The offer, which might, for example, provide a $2 discount at the time of purchase, is like a traditional coupon in that it has an expiration date. It differs in one very important way: the coupon itself isn’t necessary.

When users see Twitter Offers in their stream, they can press the “Get Offer” button to claim it. If it’s your first time to claim an offer, you’re instructed to register a credit or debit card. Your method of payment, then, becomes your coupon. When you visit the retailer and make your purchase, the system recognizes the registered card, and automatically provides the discount. Twitter hasn’t provided details on the back end processing that makes this digital discount work, but it claims to encrypt the cardholder information, and store it securely. Users can select from previously registered cards on subsequent offer claims.

Twitter has offered discounts by partnering with advertisers like American Express in the past, but the process was somewhat cumbersome, requiring users to tweet specific hashtags. Twitter Offers eliminates those hassles by utilizing the technology from CardSpring, the company it acquired in July. The service has potential, but whether or not users will be comfortable adding their credit card information to Twitter after the recent string of high profile data breaches at various retailers, remains to be seen. One user experience upgrade that could enhance the process is the ability to link multiple cards to a profile, and make them all recognizable during the redemption process, rather than selecting one specific card for each offer. You know how it is around the holidays. When one card is running low on funds, you sometimes have to switch to your reserve. What happens when your Twitter Offer card is out of money? Hopefully, in the future,Twitter won’t make you choose between the discount and avoiding NSF fees.