Loyalty and rewards

Apple keeps sweetening the deal for prospective Apple Card users, with Walgreens the latest to offer cash-back rewards.

Its newest offering is called Delivery Unlimited, which at $98 a year undercuts Amazon Prime's $119 fee.

Mobile order, delivery and payment apps are proliferating at restaurants, but they're also becoming less distinguishable, posing an entirely new challenge as deep discounts become the weapon of choice.

It took a few years for mobile wallets to get past the aura of just a "cool technology" looking for a problem to solve, but Google Pay and its peers are clearly finding their niche as a way to embed payments with customer engagement tools.

Mastercard Inc.’s European unit formally notified Belgian and German data-protection regulators of a data lapse concerning a loyalty program, officials said on Friday.

A J.D. Power official says supplemental benefits — many centered on travel cards — need to be pared down. His comments followed the company’s release of survey data that showed these hard-to-understand benefits were a drag on customer satisfaction.

Apple is expanding the list of merchants where Apple Card users may earn 3% cash back, starting with Uber.

In the age of e-commerce and the "Pays," redemptions will no longer be viewed primarily as an expense to be managed, but rather as a tool to create value through higher spending, brand engagement, and long-term loyalty, says Capco's Daniela Hawkins.

Apple Inc. and Barclays Plc have dropped the rewards program from their longtime credit-card partnership in advance of the debut this month of a new Apple Card with Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Amex's multi-merchant rewards coalition, Plenti, may have failed, but ExxonMobil never gave up on the program's potential.