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American Express is taking a new swing at burnishing both its youth appeal and its loyalty with current cardmembers, and it's choosing the location-based social platform Foursquare to do so.
For its part, Foursquare is positioning the partnership as a "game-changing" further step in enabling local merchants to use its check-in network to promote their businesses, something the network is increasingly trying to do to help monetize itself.
The campaign, which rolled out at Austin TX's South by Southwest Festival on March 11 and ended on March 15, let current American Express users sign up and link their personal credit cards to their Foursquare social accounts. Once they'd done that, those members who opened Foursquare on their laptops or mobile devices could find merchants in Austin offering special deals or discounts for Amex Foursquare registrants.
Those deals are tagged as "Special Offers" in the Foursquare Tips category (now replaced with an "Explore" button. Users must check in at the location to unlock the deal. They can then tap a "Load to Card" button and send the deal-most often a "Spend $5, Get $5" offer-to their Amex card. If they use that card to pay for their purchase, the $5 giveback will be automatically credited to their account within 3 to 5 days, according to the partners.
Each redemption of an Amex offer on Foursquare during the event also triggered a $1 donation to [Grounded in music] [[http://www.groundedinmusic.org/]], an Austin-based non-profit that brings music education to young people.
"This campaign is...