Patent ID: 7753264

Claim:
A method of operating an automated reward program through a financial institution over a network comprising: enrolling a merchant into a financial institution's rewards program wherein the terms of the reward program for the enrolled merchant are tailored for said merchant; receiving information at the financial institution about a first purchase by a user at a merchant wherein the user has a banking account at the financial institution which is associated with the financial institution's reward program; determining if the user's first purchase was at a merchant enrolled in the financial institution's reward program and if the user qualified for such enrolled merchant's reward program; assigning reward credit to the user's account in connection with such first purchase according to the purchase and reward program terms tailored for the enrolled merchant wherein the assigning of the reward credit is in monetary units and the assigned reward credit may be applied towards a future purchase by the user at the enrolled merchant; receiving information at the financial institution about a second purchase by the user at the enrolled merchant; determining if the second purchase was at the enrolled merchant and if the user is still qualified for such enrolled merchant's reward program; and determining if at least a portion of any previously assigned credit may be applied toward the payment of the second purchase.