Patent ID: 7499887

Claim:
A card processing system for allowing cardholders to automatically charge fees to clubs, merchants or service providers, comprising: means for approving credit cards capable of point-of-sale transactions to be posted on a cardholder's account; a card issuer database having information that associates individual cardholders with a plurality of clubs, merchants, or service providers for which auto-charge transactions are performed by the card issuer; said auto-charge transactions being performed without requiring, for each auto-charge, a cardholder to submit payment authorization or the club, merchant, or service provider to submit a payment transaction request; the card issuer database accessible by the card issuer to allow at least one of existing cardholders and cardholder applicants to select clubs, merchants or service providers, to be associated with that cardholder and to enable said auto-charging function for the selected clubs, merchants, or service providers; a card processor for performing the auto-charge transactions which are for payments owed by the cardholder to selected clubs, merchants, or service providers in consideration for services or goods; the card processor accessing the card issuer database to perform the auto-charge transactions; the auto-charge transactions resulting in funds being charged to the cardholder's credit account and funds being credited to an account of a third party other than the cardholder, the third party comprising one or more selected clubs, merchants, and service providers.