System and method for E-mail based rewards

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9613361-B2
Application number	US-85738910-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 16, 2010
Priority date	Jul 18, 2006
Publication date	Apr 4, 2017
Grant date	Apr 4, 2017

Abstract

A system and method provide rewards or loyalty incentives to card member customers. The system includes an enrolled card member customer database, an enrolled merchant database, a participating merchant offer database and a registered card processor. The enrolled card member customer database includes transaction accounts of card member customers enrolled in a loyalty incentive program. The enrolled merchant database includes a list of merchants participating in the loyalty incentive program. The participating merchant offer database includes loyalty incentive offers from participating merchants. The registered card processor receives a record for charge for a purchase made with an enrolled merchant by an enrolled card member customer and uses the record of charge to determine whether the purchase qualifies for a rebate credit in accordance with a discount offer from the enrolled merchant. If the purchase qualifies for a rebate credit, the registered card processor provides the rebate credit to an account of the enrolled card member customer. The registered card processor also provides for electronic notification of rewards offers or credit to prepaid cards, in response to purchases conforming to a specific set of merchant criteria. The system provides a coupon-less way for merchants to provide incentive discounts and/or credits to enrolled customers, along with notifying customers of other available incentive offers.

First claim

We claim:

1. A method, comprising:
determining, by a computer based system, that a transaction account is associated with a first population based on real time spend data in the transaction account;
linking, by the computer based system and based on the determining, the transaction account, with a rewards program and a user profile account of a social networking distribution system;
generating, by the computer based system, a registration identifier in response to linking the transaction account to the rewards program and the user profile account of the social networking distribution system,
authorizing, by an authorization server of the computer based system, a transaction with a merchant in response to a user initiating the transaction with the merchant using the transaction account,
identifying, by the computer based system and in response to the authorizing, the transaction information from the transaction account for the transaction, wherein the transaction is with the merchant that is a participant in the rewards program,
accessing, by the computer based system and in response to the authorizing, a plurality of offers associated with a plurality of merchants;
selecting, by the computer based system and in response to the accessing, a subset of the plurality of offers associated with the merchant;
analyzing, by the computer based system and in response to the selecting, the transaction information to determine that the transaction information qualifies for an offer of the subset of the plurality of offers;
determining, by the computer based system and in response to the analyzing, the offer based on offer parameters, the transaction account, and the transaction information;
linking, by the computer based system and in response to the selecting, the offer with the registration identifier;
associating, by the computer based system and in response to the linking with the registration identifier, the offer with the transaction account based on the registration identifier;
providing, by the computer based system and contemporaneously with and in response to the associating the offer with the transaction account, offer notification instructions for the offer to the social networking distribution system associated with the user profile account of the social networking distribution system and based on the registration identifier associated with the offer, the transaction account, and the user profile account of the social networking distribution system,
crediting, by the computer based system, a discount associated with the offer to the transaction during a settlement operation.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising selecting, by the computer based system, the offer based on the association of the transaction account with the first population and a second population.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the first population comprises transaction accounts with transaction information corresponding to a targeted merchant.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein a rule is configured to identify the transaction accounts comprising transaction information that is below a threshold corresponding to the merchant.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
generating, by the computer based system, a record of the offer associated with the transaction account used to conduct the transaction, wherein the record of the offer is associated with a charge associated with the transaction information corresponding to the transaction; and
displaying, by the computer based system, an indicator of an amount of the offer on a statement in connection with the charge corresponding to the transaction.

6. The method of claim 2 , wherein at least one of the first population or the second population are defined by a plurality of spending behaviors.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the offer reduces the transaction amount at least one of at the point-of-sale or as a statement credit.

8. The method of claim 2 , further comprising adjusting, by the computer based system, the at least one of the first population or the second population based on the real time spend data, wherein real time spend data corresponds to spend data from a current billing cycle of the transaction account, and wherein the spend data comprises authorization requests and posted transactions associated with the transaction account.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the transaction account is added to the second population, based on the real time spend data associated with the transaction account, wherein the transaction account is removed from the first population based on the real time spend data associated with the transaction account and in response to the selecting of the offer and the transaction account being added to the second population.

10. The method of claim 8 , wherein the transaction account is added to the second population, based on the real time spend data associated with the transaction account, wherein the transaction account is not removed from the first population based on the real time spend data associated with the transaction account.

11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising,
receiving, by the computer based system, a plurality of offers from a plurality of merchants;
creating, by the computer based system, a plurality of populations based on the plurality of offers from the plurality of merchants; and
defining, by the computer based system, criteria for selection of transaction accounts for the plurality of populations based on the plurality of offers.

12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising associating, by the computer based system, the transaction accounts with the plurality of populations based on the real time spend data, wherein the real time spend data comprises requests for authorization and posted transactions in a current billing cycle.

13. The method of claim 12 , further comprising sending, by the computer based system, notice of the offer to the first population.

14. The method of claim 13 , further comprising providing a reward to the transaction account based on the real time spend data.

15. The method of claim 14 , wherein the reward is a monetary value associated with at least one of the posted transactions in a current billing cycle, or an indicator of the monetary value is displayed on a statement associated with the transaction account.

16. The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining is further based on real time spend data in the transaction account satisfying predetermined spending pattern criteria.

17. The method of claim 12 , wherein the plurality of offers from the plurality of merchants comprise rules that further define the plurality of populations.

18. The method of claim 17 , wherein the rules comprise merchant spending criteria, product spending criteria, and spending amount criteria.

19. A non-transitory, tangible computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereon that, if executed by a computer based system, causes the computer based system to perform a method comprising:
determining, by the computer based system, that a transaction account is associated with a first population based on real time spend data in the transaction account;
linking, by the computer based system and based on the determining, the transaction account, with a rewards program and a user profile account of a social networking distribution system;
generating, by the computer based system, a registration identifier in response to linking the transaction account to the rewards program and the user

Assignees

• Wolf David
• Tiku Sripriya V
• Roen Scott M
• Russo Jennifer M
• American Express Travel Related Services Co Inc

Inventors

• Wolf David
• Tiku Sripriya V
• Roen Scott M
• Russo Jennifer M

Classifications

• G06Q20/387

  Payment using discounts or coupons (relating to marketing G06Q30/02) · CPC title

• G06Q30/0234

  Rebates after completed purchase · CPC title

• G06Q30/0226

  Incentive systems for frequent usage, e.g. frequent flyer miles programs or point systems · CPC title

• G06Q30/02 Primary

  Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising · CPC title