Panini America’s new rewards program launches this week with the arrival of 2014 Score Football. Collectors who open packs of the company’s trading cards will be able to earn points that can be used to acquire autographed trading cards or memorabilia from players and teams of their choice. The company first announced the Panini Rewards Program in March.

The program – available as both a smartphone app and a web platform – will use an established point value system. Panini Rewards points cards are randomly inserted into packs of 2014 Score Football, which releases later this week. Collectors can use the Panini Rewards smartphone app to scan the QR code on those cards to claim the points or manually enter their points cards on a special website. Collectors can exchange their points immediately for any available single cards in the Panini Rewards inventory, or accumulate points toward what the company calls “unique Panini experiences”.

Fresh cards will be added to the Panini Rewards inventory every week. Point values assigned to players’ cards will be determined by a number of factors, “including level of collectiblity and on-field performance,” according to Panini, which indicates the Rewards program is a bit like the stock market with individual player point values likely to change in real-time based on how the player is valued in the current market.

“The Panini Rewards Program is a truly revolutionary development for the entire trading card industry and will offer us the chance to effectively eliminate and further reduce redemption cards from our products, replacing them with Panini Rewards Points that collectors can use to acquire any available card immediately,” said Panini America CEO Mark Warsop. “This program has been in development for more than two years and we are excited to finally share it with collectors.”

The program will debut in other sports beginning with 2014-15 NBA Hoops Basketball (September) and 2015 Donruss Baseball (February 2015).

Rewards points never expire and collectors will be able to view every available Panini Rewards card immediately using the app or on the website.

Customers holding current redemption cards will still have them honored under the company’s current policy. While it won’t immediately be possible to trade your existing redemption cards for items on the Rewards website, Panini isn’t discounting the possibility such a trade could be possible in the near future.

Other highlights of the program include:

• Upon a product’s launch, collectors will have immediate access to Panini America’s available single-card inventory directly from their mobile devices.

• The ability for collectors to choose their own replacements from the Panini Rewards Platform.

• The Panini Rewards Platform will be accessible via both web- and app-based applications for iOS and Android devices.

Panini America officials worked with Kodak to implement a high-resolution image-capture solution designed to recreate the experience for collectors to view memorabilia and autograph cards for every available card on the Panini Rewards Platform.

Panini says future Rewards Platform enhancements will give collectors the ability to “self-authenticate their trading cards to ensure authenticity and eliminate issues related to potential counterfeit trading cards on the secondary market”.

The Panini Rewards app and website are both live now. Click here to see 2014 Score Football boxes on eBay.