Patent ID: 7742942

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of discounting a price-per-unit (PPU) of fuel at a fuel merchant and increasing customer use of third-party financial cards issued by a plurality of third-party issuers, wherein the third-party financial cards are selected from a group consisting of credit cards and debit cards, said method comprising: storing in a database, a PPU discount associated with one of third-party issuers, wherein the PPU discount is defined in affinity-type agreements between a fuel merchant and third-party issuers; reading a customer's financial card number to begin a fueling transaction at the fuel merchant, wherein said financial card is available for use by said customer at a plurality of non-affiliated merchant locations; identifying the third-party issuer of the financial card by analyzing the financial card number, each issuer having a PPU discount individually associated therewith; associating the identified third-party issuer of the financial card with the stored PPU discount for the fuel; discounting a PPU of the fuel posted on the fuel dispenser by an amount equal to the PPU discount associated with the identified issuer of the financial card; dispensing a number of units of fuel to the customer at the discounted PPU; calculating a redeemed discount by multiplying the dispensed number of units of fuel by the PPU discount associated with the identified third-party issuer of the financial card; and allocating the redeemed discount between the third-party issuer of the financial card and the fuel merchant wherein said reading, identifying, associating and calculating are performed by a computing device.