Patent ID: 8540152

Claim:
A method comprising: an entity agreeing to permit transfers or conversions of non-negotiable credits to entity independent funds, wherein the entity agrees to compensate a commerce partner by paying an amount in cash or credit for each non-negotiable credit redeemed by the commerce partner, wherein said non-negotiable credits are loyalty points of the loyalty program possessed by a member, wherein the loyalty points are maintained in a loyalty program account owned or controlled by the entity, wherein the entity redeems the loyalty points for a set of entity services that the entity provides to the member, wherein said entity independent funds are different loyalty points of a different loyalty program of a commerce partner, wherein the different loyalty points are redeemable by the commerce partner for commerce partner services that the commerce partner provides to the member, wherein said entity independent funds are possessed by the member and are maintained in a funds account, wherein the funds account is neither owned or controlled by the entity or by any subsidiary or parent of the entity, wherein the entity does not accept the entity independent funds as payment for any of the entity services; the computer detecting a set of two or more interactions earning additional non-negotiable credits for the member in accordance with terms-of-use of the loyalty program, wherein the computer adds the additional non-negotiable credits to the loyalty program account; and responsive to an indication of a conversion operation occurrence, the computer subtracting a quantity of the non-negotiable credits from the loyalty program account, said subtracted quantity of non-negotiable credits comprising at least a quantity of non-negotiable credits that were converted or transferred to a new quantity of entity independent funds, wherein the conversion operation occurrence causes the subtracting of the non-negotiable credits from the loyalty program account to occur approximately concurrently with an addition of a corresponding quantity of entity-independent funds being added to the funds account per the conversion operation occurrence.