American Express and foursquare have announced the national roll out a service that enables AmEx customers to link their foursquare profiles to their cards to load and redeem merchant ‘Specials’ without the need for coupons, special codes or showing their mobile devices to cashiers.
Powered by American Express’ Smart Offer APIs, the service requires card members to register on sync.americanexpress.com/foursquare, where they can link their foursquare profile to their card in order to receive exclusive American Express Specials at foursquare venues.
When the customer sees a Special on foursquare they want to take advantage of (for example: spending $75 at H&M and getting $10 back), they ‘check in’ to the merchant and simply load the Special to their card, says Amex. After the customer makes the purchase, they receive a push notification stating they successfully redeemed the Special and will receive an American Express statement credit in three to five days.
The national launch kicks off with Specials from H&M, Sports Authority, and Union Square Hospitality Group, and is expected to expand to include additional national and local merchant offers in the coming months, says Amex. The service was successfully piloted three months ago at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas.
According to Amex, the service enables merchants to offer tailored specials without investing time and money in training staff to decipher a coupon code or process a coupon-based offer. In the coming weeks, American Express says it also plans to launch an online tool for merchants to create couponless offers in social media networks in just a few clicks. ![[end]](/resources/bullet/nfcnews-4.gif)
Foursquare has always been the most monetizable yet least monetized social media tool. http://admajoremblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/foursquare-ready-to-think-outside-box.html Glad to see them gaining traction at retail. http://twitter.com/SteveS1