DUAL CARD

• US 20110161226A1
• Filed: 02/24/2011
• Published: 06/30/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/13/2003
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Starbucks Corporation
• Original Assignee: Starbucks Corporation
• Inventors: Courtion, Colette, Stumpf, Mary
• Application Number:
  US13/034,076
• Publication Number:
  US 20110161226A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/39
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/10 specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/20 Point-of-sale [POS] network systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/24 Credit schemes, i.e. "pay after"
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/28 Pre-payment schemes, e.g. "pay before"
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/342 Cards defining paid or billed services or quantities
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 7/02 by keys or other credit registering devices
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 7/025 by means, e.g. cards, providing billing information at the time of purchase, e.g. identification of seller or purchaser, quantity of goods delivered or to be delivered
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 7/125 Offline card verification

Abstract

A dual card, which facilitates payment for goods or services from either a credit account or a stored value account, operates on both an open network and a closed network. The dual card is a payment card that integrates the ability to provide credit privileges and stored value privileges to a cardholder of the dual card. The features, benefits, and advantages of a stored value card are integrated with the credit card aspects of the dual card. The benefits, features, and advantages of a credit card are integrated with a stored value card.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for merging dual cards, wherein each dual card is associated with a credit account maintained by a financial institution and a stored value account maintained by a sponsor, the computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving multiple dual card numbers to be merged via a Web page, wherein each dual card number falls within a numerical range that distinguishes a dual card associated with the dual card number from a credit card and a stored value card; and

merging the stored value accounts associated with the dual cards for which dual card numbers were received into one stored value account maintained by the sponsor.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising submitting by a dual card support center the received multiple dual card numbers to a stored value processor.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising instructing the stored value processor to merge the stored value accounts into one stored value account.