Groupon’s Low-Key Rewards Program Now Available Nationwide

Groupon is rolling out a program nationwide today that lets merchants reward loyal customers without the hassle of punch cards or other mobile applications.

The launch is not a surprise, since the Chicago daily deals company has been testing the technology in Philadelphia for the past few months.

Customers who opt in to Groupon Rewards will earn points when they spend money at a participating merchant using the same credit card or debit card they have on file at Groupon.com.

Once a customer spends a predetermined amount, a reward is unlocked to use during a future visit. All of the recording and accounting takes place behind the scenes, and doesn’t require customers to show receipts or check in on a mobile device.

Groupon says the program will also seamlessly tie in to a merchant’s point-of-sale system, and is available to any U.S. merchant, regardless of whether the business has previously run a Groupon deal.

Other companies are also working on similar loyalty solutions.

Earlier this week, I wrote about Belly raising $10 million to create a mobile-app-based loyalty program. And, Kirkland, Wash.-based Pirq also announced this week that it is giving Apple’s Bay Area employees access to daily deals.

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I think the NSA has a job to do and we need the NSA. But as (physicist) Robert Oppenheimer said, “When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and argue about what to do about it only after you’ve had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.”

— Phil Zimmerman, PGP inventor and Silent Circle co-founder, in an interview with Om Malik