Hasta La Gadget!

Tsutaya and its parent company Culture Convenience Club yesterday began to offer a service where consumers’ loyalty points can be used as donations to the earthquake relief funds needed due to the catastrophe that has afflicted north-east Japan.

This follows other gestures by mobile phone companies like Softbank offering free wi-fi, and NTT allowing its payphones to be used for free when the quake and tsunami struck on Friday afternoon.

The T-Points donation is an effective system that means you can contribute in a tangible way with “money” you might not even have used and in a way that means you don’t have to hand over cash to someone.

At time of writing, since the service began on March 12th there have been over 54,000 conversions-donations and an accumulated total of nearly 22 million points.

T-Points is the biggest loyalty points system in Japan, spearheaded by Tsutaya, a massive DVD and game rental store. With your T-Card you can collect, save and use points (1 point = 1 yen) at 69 affiliated chains, including FamilyMart convenience store and ENEOS gasoline stands. As of September 2010 there are 36.08 million T-Card holders, usable at 34,780 outlets.

The T-Points Charity service overall started in 2007 and is associated with unicef, the Japan Red Cross Society and other smaller regional non-profit projects.

At least some other similar points conversion donation schemes have been set up, including Hatena and online shopping site EC Navi.

Tsutaya’s points conversion period for the earthquake funds is currently set to run until the end of April, though it may well be extended given the unprecedented level of destruction we are seeing on our TV screens here.

Also, at present you have to be a registered member of Tsutaya’s online services and log in to convert your T-Points. This is a slightly irksome task for the more casual consumer (like me) and I wouldn’t be surprised if Tsutaya and other affiliates offer people the chance to convert points to donations at the retail counter, in the same way staff usually ask you if you want to use or save your points.