Patent ID: 7590557

Claim:
A computer-implemented method to facilitate a purchase by at least first and second cardmembers using respective first and second transaction instruments associated with a single tax-advantaged account, comprising: (a) receiving, at a host computer, a request from a merchant to charge a purchase by the first cardmember against the tax-advantaged account for a transaction using the first transaction instrument at a point of sale device; (b) electronically determining whether the first cardmember charge is for a covered tax-advantaged expense; (c) electronically crediting the tax-advantaged account with points, stored at a database server, associated with a value of the first cardmember charge only if the first cardmember charge is determined to be for a covered tax-advantaged expense; (d) receiving, at the host computer, a request from a merchant to charge a purchase by the second cardmember against the tax-advantaged account for a transaction using the second transaction instrument at a point of sale device; (e) electronically determining whether the second cardmember charge is for a covered tax-advantaged expense; (f) electronically crediting the tax-advantaged account with points, stored at the database server, associated with a value of the second cardmember charge only if the second cardmember charge is determined to be for a covered tax-advantaged expense; (g) determining an amount of points awarded for the purchases by the first and second cardmembers based on whether or not the purchases qualify as a tax-advantaged expense and based on whether or not the charges can automatically be determined as to their tax-advantaged qualification or they can only be manually determined to be tax-advantaged qualified.