CHICAGO --BP’s recent partnership with Visa appears to be part of a growing movement to pair a retailer’s loyalty program to payment.
With Chicago-based BP’s latest announcement, members of its loyalty program will now have the ability to link eligible Visa payment cards to their BP Driver Rewards account. The new functionality allows loyalty members to use a branded credit card from Foster City, Calif.-based Visa to purchase BP fuel and earn or redeem BP rewards without needing a separate loyalty card.
That convenience is an important driver for mobile payment and part of a larger set of digital-transaction trends, according to Phil Schwartz, manager of information systems, credit card systems POS app support, for Valero Payment Services Co., San Antonio. In the February issue of CSP magazine, Schwartz said, “All of the major mobile-payment platforms are offering additional features, like linked loyalty programs and electronic access, event tickets and boarding passes.”
The key element is convenience. Whether paying with mobile or plastic, retailers want to eliminate the inconvenience of customers having to pay and then pull out a loyalty card to get their rewards. As Doug Dryan, BP’s loyalty manager, said in a press release, “By eliminating the need to swipe both a payment and a loyalty card when purchasing BP Fuel, we have simplified the consumer experience.”
Other ties between payment and loyalty have emerged, including New York-based American Express and its coalition-based rewards program called “Plenti,” which launched last spring. New York-based Macy's has its Plenti customers linked to payment via its Plenti card. Irving, Texas-based ExxonMobil is one of a dozen or so retailers in that program, with the oil company working on ways to link Plenti with the Speedpass key fob or mobile app.
When addressing a cross-channel assembly of retailers at last month’s National Retail Federation show in New York, Kenneth Chenault, chairman and CEO of New York-based American Express Co., said, “We’re not thinking narrowly. We have a broad view of payments and commerce.”
Convenience-store retailers who have tied payment to their app and rewards programs include Framingham, Mass.-based Cumberland Farms; Brentwood, Tenn.-based Mapco and Waycross, Ga.-based Flash Foods. The 164-store Flash Foods closed its deal to sell to San Antonio-based CST Brands earlier this month.
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