In the hopes of saving a little money, people's wallets are bulging with point cards covering the whole gamut of consumer purchases.

Point cards, ranging from those issued by small shops to major players like airlines, department store chains and credit card companies, are aimed at fostering repeat customers by rewarding their patronage with discounts or free gifts and services.

However, while the cards used to be limited to a single company's products and services, the situation is changing among big players: Companies are crossing industry lines to form alliances in the hope that greater ease of use will boost business.

"The idea of tieups is to expand the range of choice for customers" to make it easier to collect and use the points, said Hiromichi Yasuoka, a senior consultant at Nomura Research Institute. "(Point programs) are now becoming the marketing tools for companies to attract customers together by giving incentives to each other's members."

According to NRI, Japanese point cards accumulated the equivalent of more than 450 billion yen in fiscal 2005. NRI estimates that more than 100 companies have such programs, although not all are fully utilized, Yasuoka said.

Many firms believe points are effective in luring customers, but differentiating their programs from their rivals' is getting harder.

"Every year, about 40 percent of the accumulated points are believed to expire (before enough are accumulated to be redeemed). From the companies' perspective, it means they are losing loyal customers," he said.

To enhance point programs, firms are expanding alliances in various directions, ranging from jointly provided rewards to point conversion agreements.

One such company is T Card & Marketing Co., which runs the T Card used at the Tsutaya rental video chain.

"What we are trying to do is offer a card that allows our members to earn points easily in their daily lives," said Yuki Fujii, a spokeswoman for T Card, a subsidiary of Cultural Convenience Club Co.

"Our members can earn points not only at Tsutaya, but also at other stores with a single card," Fujii said.

T Card boasts 19.3 million members and is now affiliated with 33 companies, including convenience store chain Lawson Inc., Kitamura Co. electronics stores, Warner Mycal cinemas and Skylark Co.'s Gusto restaurant chain.

This gives T Card members 27,000 other stores across the nation where they can gain points. The participating firms are free to offer incentives.

The amount of points that can be earned varies with the shop. For example, Tsutaya and Gusto offer a point for each 100 yen spent. When the points are redeemed, however, each point is worth just 1 yen in most cases -- a return of just 1 percent on patronage.

T Card & Marketing says it is careful when choosing partners.

"Our policy is to basically limit the partners to one major company from one industry," so member firms can use the program to lure customers away from their competitors, Fujii said.

The alliance trend has even caused new businesses to emerge, including NetMile Inc. and G Plan Inc., which provide point-exchange services.

"In most cases, point programs are just postponing future price discounts," said NetMile marketing manager Yoshio Narita. "If companies want to differentiate their point programs from the others, they have to make it easier for their members to earn and use points."

NetMile, which has 3.67 million members, draws from 1,023 participating companies for its online point-exchange services.

NetMile users can earn points by registering with a service and purchasing products online through the participants' Web sites. The accumulated points can be converted into free gifts, electronic money or points from other member firms.

While NetMile mainly focuses on Internet users, G Plan allows members to integrate points from 125 member companies into "G points," which can be converted into electronic money, other types of points and free gifts.

G Plan's 1.4 million users, for example, can exchange 100 points gained from Sumitomo Mitsui Card Co.'s programs into 495 G points. The exchange rate differs from company to company.

In addition to joint programs, companies are also enthusiastic about engineering bilateral agreements.

For example, Japan Airlines Corp. and East Japan Railway Co. have exclusive agreements that allow members to convert 10,000 miles into 10,000 yen in electronic money on JR East's Suica cards, which act as prepaid train tickets.

NRI's Yasuoka singled out the JAL-JR East alliance as a typical example of how companies can cooperate to attract customers. JAL has 17.6 million members in Japan, while JR East has 17.75 million.

"They are trying to take advantage of the traffic movement . . . to encourage people to take JR East trains when going to the airport and then to take JAL flights," Yasuoka said. He believes partnerships like these will grow in the future.

But expanding alliances also risks confusing customers with their complexity.

"I always make calculations to find the most favorable exchange rate to get the most out of it when converting points from one program to another," said Yu Ogawa, a keen point collector.

"Expanding partnerships is good on one hand because it will increase our options," Ogawa said.

"But at the same time, it will also increase cases in which companies frequently change the conditions on their services," including the exchange rates, she said.

NRI's Yasuoka said that is exactly what makes point programs convenient for firms.

"Companies can easily join or pull out of a point program alliance" while enjoying the freedom to change their own conditions to maximize marketing efforts, he said.