Patent ID: 8160922

Claim:
A method for making a donation to a third party comprising the steps of: a. a user executing a purchase transaction by using a card with a point of sale device, the card linked to a user card account and a user reward point account, the user card account and the user reward point account being associated with the user and stored on an issuing bank computer, the user reward point account storing reward points previously accumulated by the user as a result of a previous transaction; b. a transaction processing device processing the transaction with the issuing bank computer by requesting authorization of the purchase transaction from the issuing bank computer and determining the quantity of reward points stored in the user reward point account on the issuing bank computer; c. the transaction processing device instructing the point of sale device to display (i) the quantity of reward points determined to be stored in the user reward point account on the issuing bank computer and (ii) a query to the user if a donation of reward points from the user reward point account is desired to be made by the user to a third party; d. if the user indicates that a donation of reward points is to be made to a third party, then executing a transfer from the user reward point account to a designated third party as a donation to the third party by reducing the number of reward points in the user account and transferring a corresponding value to an account associated with the third party.