Foursquare and American Express supposedly inked a deal that offers discounts to Amex card holders in stores like Sports Authority and NYC restaurants like the Union Square Cafe. This is just an early trial and limited in scope, but the discounts are impressive. I’m not a big Foursquare user but I would use it more if got a $US20 credit each time I spent $US50 at Sports Authority. [NY Times via Business Insider]
Greg
Wednesday, June 29, 2011 at 8:41 AMThe AmEx / Foursquare coupon partnership offer merchants a much better deal than the likes of Groupon do. Although we don’t know the specifics of each merchant participation agreement, my educated guess is that American Express, as part of its strong push to position itself at the forefront of the fast-growing mobile payments industry, is subsidizing a great deal of the coupons’ value. After all, for AmEx this is just another form of a rewards program. This is definitely not the case with the Groupon deals, which typically cost merchants 50 percent of the already heavily discounted coupon’s value. I could never figure out why any merchant would agree to this. http://blog.unibulmerchantservices.com/why-the-amex-foursquare-mobile-coupon-push-is-good-for-merchants