Patent ID: 8676698

Claim:
A method of processing a gift certification within a credit card account, the method comprising: Receiving, by a computer system associated with a financial institution, a request for registering a gift certificate in a pre-existing credit card account having a credit limit, wherein at least one credit card is associated with the credit cards account and is usable in transactions with a plurality of honoring merchants that are to honor the at least one credit card, wherein the gift certificate has a monetary value; Subsequent to receiving the request, establishing, by the computer system, a gift certificate use limit in an amount of the monetary value within the credit card account; Receiving a plurality of requests for approving a plurality of transaction with a subset of the plurality of honoring merchants using the at least one credit card; Approving each of the plurality of transactions based on a sum of the credit limit and the gift certificate use limit rather than solely based on the credit limit, the plurality of transactions totaling a total transaction amount; and Subsequent to approving the plurality of transactions, computing, by the computer system, a total charge amount to be charged to an owner of the credit card account for the plurality of transactions, wherein the total charge amount is computed as smaller than the total transaction amount by applying at least some of the gift certificate use limit.