Patent ID: 7680687

Claim:
A method of managing reward points comprising the steps of: a) establishing a reward point account directly with each of a plurality of reward points issuing entities, wherein each of said reward point accounts is stored on a reward server computer associated with the reward point issuing entity, and wherein each of said reward point accounts tracks points earned by a user for transactions between the user and the associated reward points issuing entity, and wherein each of the reward points issuing entities enables the user to selectively redeem points from the reward point account associated with the user for an item selected by the user, b) earning reward points from each of the plurality of reward points issuing entities, each of said reward points issuing entities tracking the user's earned reward points in the user's reward point account stored on the rewards server computer associated with the reward points issuing entity, c) establishing a reward exchange account on a trading server computer, said trading server computer selectively interconnected over a computer network with each of the plurality of reward server computers, d) providing an interactive display to a user computer that displays (i) the user's earned reward points in the reward point accounts associated with the user, and (ii) controls for the user to designate a quantity of said earned reward points to be exchanged from at least one said user's reward point accounts into the reward exchange account via the computer network; e) a user computer providing instructions to the trading server computer for designating a quantity entered by the user of said earned reward points from one or more of said user's reward point accounts for trading into the reward exchange account, f) the trading server computer accumulating, in real time response to said instructions, the designated earned reward points from said one or more of said user's reward point accounts into the reward exchange account associated with the user.