Citi introduces Facebook app to make its rewards program more 'social'.

• Position: MARKETING NEWS - Brief article

CITIBANK, NEW YORK, HAS INTRODUCED A FACEBOOK APP that expands the way that customers can utilize the bank's loyalty reward points--such as by pooling them with friends to achieve a shared reward or by combining points for a charitable donation. Facebook friends, for example, could use the app to combine points to book a weekend getaway.

Citibank's rewards program is known as ThankYou Rewards. The Facebook app is the Citi ThankYou Point Sharing App.

To promote the Facebook app, Citi gave 2,500 reward points each to the first 4,000 rewards members who linked the new app to their Facebook page prior to a specified date. Customers could use the 2,500 points towards a number of individual rewards, such as digital books and music downloads.

Here's how the point sharing app works:

Rewards members can visit the Citibank Facebook page (www.facebook.com/Citibank/) and view the ThankYou Point Sharing tab to link the app to their rewards account. ThankYou members will be prompted to enter their username and password to log in to their accounts.

Rewards members can then start a pool of points for an individual, group or cause and set a goal. For...