{"id":1027,"date":"2010-07-08T14:44:36","date_gmt":"2010-07-08T21:44:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/?p=1027"},"modified":"2010-07-08T14:44:36","modified_gmt":"2010-07-08T21:44:36","slug":"open-loop-gift-cards-to-get-easier-to-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/?p=1027","title":{"rendered":"Open-loop gift cards to get easier to use?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>MasterCard and Discover have <a href=\"http:\/\/community.developer.authorize.net\/t5\/News-and-Announcements\/New-MasterCard-Discover-Processing-Requirements\/m-p\/2634\" target=\"_blank\">new requirements<\/a> that merchants who accept those cars support some new capabilities that could have a very beneficial effect on open-loop gift card usability.\u00a0 Specifically:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span>Balance response transactions <\/span><\/strong><span>\u2014 For prepaid and gift cards, once the card has been      used, the remaining account balance will be transmitted along with  the     authorization response. The remaining balance must be printed on  the     customer receipt, displayed on the Web page or point-of-sale  terminal, or     both. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #c2bd49;\"><span>+<\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<strong><span>Partial authorization      transactions <\/span><\/strong><span>\u2014 When a customer&#8217;s  transaction     amount exceeds the balance available on their debit,  prepaid or gift card,     instead of declining the transaction, a  partial authorization for the     amount available to the customer will  be returned. This will allow the     customer to pay for the remaining  amount with another form of payment. This     is called a split-tender  transaction.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #c2bd49;\"><span>+<\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<strong><span>Authorization reversals <\/span><\/strong><span>\u2014 An authorization reversal is a real-time transaction      initiated when the customer decides that they do not want to  proceed with     the transaction, or if the merchant cannot complete the  transaction for any     reason. Authorization reversals free up the  customer&#8217;s available balance on     their debit, prepaid or gift card. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What this means is that:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>You will know the remaining balance on your gift card after you purchase something.\u00a0 I can only hope this eventually leads to all merchants being able to determine your balance <em>before<\/em> you purchase.<\/li>\n<li>Merchants <em>must<\/em> support split-tender transctions, which would allow you to use the last $5.11 on your MasterCard gift card with cash or another credit card to buy something that cost more than that.<\/li>\n<li>When you try to use your gift card to purchase something but it fails for some reason, funds won&#8217;t be held on your card for weeks.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Merchants have until June 30, 2011 to comply with these new rules.\u00a0 I would say it is a coin toss that after that time these things will actually be possible given the industry&#8217;s track record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MasterCard and Discover have new requirements that merchants who accept those cars support some new capabilities that could have a very beneficial effect on open-loop gift card usability.\u00a0 Specifically: Balance response transactions \u2014 For prepaid and gift cards, once the card has been used, the remaining account balance will be transmitted along with the authorization [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1027"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1029,"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027\/revisions\/1029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}