Patent ID: 8489449

Claim:
A system for managing loyalty incentives for a customer, comprising: a. a personal loyalty account at a centralized server, assigned to the customer for storing a first amount of loyalty incentives for the customer, b. a loyalty card carried with the customer for identifying and accessing the personal loyalty account and including a loyalty purse for storing a second amount of loyalty incentives, and c. a first merchant terminal operable to interface with the loyalty card for granting the customer an awarded amount of loyalty incentives by selecting, in accordance with a first predefined amount of loyalty incentives that is independent of the awarded amount of loyalty incentives, whether: to add the awarded amount of loyalty incentives to the loyalty purse, or to add said first predefined amount of loyalty incentives to the loyalty account and receive the difference between the first predefined amount of loyalty incentives and the awarded amount of loyalty incentives from the loyalty purse.