Can cities or government partner with credit card companies or banks to reward points for bill payments?*
I’ve used maybe two dozen credit cards from a dozen banks in half a dozen countries over the last three dozen years.
Every time I’ve paid a bill, any bill – retailer, restaurant, government property tax, city council tax, etc. – with my credit card, I’ve received reward points from my credit card company.
The number of reward points depends on the amount of spend and is governed by the so-called “Earn Ratio” specified in the credit card TOS. City / government has no role to play in this. (Of course, they do need to have a Merchant Agreement in place with a credit card company that enables them to accept credit card payments for your bills in the first place – but that has nothing to do with reward points.)
Special agreements are required http://www.buyambienmed.com between a Merchant and a Credit Card Issuer only for extra reward points over and above the Base Earn Ratio.
It’s customary for retailers to drive extra sales via promotion campaigns from time to time where they tie up with some – not all – credit card companies to give more than the Base Earn Ratio of reward points for purchases made with the said credit card from their stores. This requires partnerships over and above the Merchant Agreement.
I’ve not come across such promotions for bill payments, whether from private sector or public sector organizations. So I don’t see the need for any special partnerships between city / government and credit card company.
*: This is the original question I answered. I’m repeating it to help me make sense of my answer in case it’s moved to / merged with some other question that I didn’t answer.