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American Express to offer coupons via Facebook
CANDICE CHOI
(The Associated Press)

NEW YORK (AP) — American Express is jumping into the daily deals arena.

04:34:00AM (DST) Tuesday,July 19,2011.

The card issuer on Monday night will launch a Facebook application that offers personalized coupons based on a cardholder's likes, interests and other profile information. The announcement marks a significant entrant into the daily deals market, which has exploded in the past year.

For those familiar with Groupon and LivingSocial — by far the two largest daily deal sites — a key advantage of the Amex application is that there's no need to spend money up front to get a deal.

Instead, cardholders simply click to add the deals they like to their Amex accounts. For example, if cardholders click on a deal to get $5 back for spending $20 at Whole Foods, they automatically get $5 credited to their Amex statement the next time they charge $20 at the market. Amex says credits should appear within three to five days after purchases are made, but may take up to two billing cycles.

In the Whole Foods example, cardholders would also earn Amex rewards points on the $15 that is ultimately charged to the card. There's no penalty if deals are never used.

With Groupon and LivingSocial, by contrast, consumers have to pay for deals up front. And there's no refund if the vouchers aren't redeemed before they expire. That's not an unusual problem; an estimated 20 percent of daily deals go unused, according to Yipit.com, which tracks the industry.


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* American Express in collaboration with Facebook making consumer spending made easy. *

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