Patent ID: 6947898

Claim:
A method of operating a reward points accumulation and redemption program 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 associated with the reward point issuing entity, and wherein each of said reward point accounts tracks points earned by the 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 associated with the reward points issuing entity, c) selectively designating at least some of said earned reward points from one or more of said user's reward point accounts for exchange into a reward exchange account on a host computing device selectively interoperative with each of the plurality of reward servers via a computing network, d) accumulating the designated earned reward points from said reward point accounts into the reward exchange account associated with the user, and e) redeeming accumulated points from the user's reward exchange account for use as consideration in a transaction.