Visa Begins Offering Personalized Deals

On the heels of Amex‘s introduction of personalized real-time offers for its cardmembers in its iPhone app, Visa recently rolled out its own personalized deal engine called “Visa Offers.”

On the surface, Visa’s service looks to be similar in intent to Amex’s offering. Upon further examination, however, it appears to be more intrusive and cumbersome–at least in its current form.

To enroll a Visa card in the program, cardmembers must sign up and supply their name, credit card information, email address and mobile phone number. After you’ve successfully enrolled, you’ll receive both a welcome email and text message. Individualized offers will then be sent to you periodically, again either by text or email.

While you can opt out of receiving email from the Visa Offers program, it is not possible to opt out of receiving text messages without opting out of the program entirely–a significant difference from Amex’s program, which doesn’t require your cell phone number at all.

Right now, the list of retailers participating in Visa’s program includes:

• 24 Hour Fitness
• La Quinta Inn and Suites
• Alamo Rent A Car
• Public Storage
• Allstate Motor Club
• Norton by Symantec
• Nutrisystem
• Dollar Rent a Car
• Pods
• Big 5 Sporting Goods
• Petco
• Hertz Rent-a-Car
• Famous Footwear

While some offers may be redeemed with a statement credit after making a qualifying purchase, others may provide coupons or promo codes that you’ll need to use. In this way, it isn’t as convenient as Amex’s offers, which are completely couponless.

Given that the program is free, however, there’s no reason not to check it out to see whether it is worthwhile for you. And since it’s still in the beta phase, we can hope that as the program evolves and adds new offers and features, it will become more competitive with Amex’s program.

For more information about Visa Offers or to sign up, see offers.visa.com.