System And Method For Providing Consumer Rewards

Abstract

An automated consumer rewards/incentive program that accepts a registration of a consumer. The registration entitles the consumer to receive the benefits of the incentive program. To track the fulfillment of reward earning criteria established by member businesses, the registration includes information indicative of a credit card of the consumer. The system may track member consumer credit card transactions without receiving personal information for non-members by using a one way hash function. The system uses the credit card information to determine when member customers perform a transaction at a member business. When a member customer performs a transaction at a member business using the registered credit card, the system and method examines the credit card transactional information to determine if the consumer fulfilled the requirements of the incentive program for the member business. If the transactional information indicates that the consumer fulfilled the criteria of the rewards program of the member business, the consumer is rewarded in accordance with the benefits of the incentive program.

1 . A method for allowing member consumers to receive benefits associated with an incentive program, the method comprising:
 accepting via a computer network registration information for a plurality of member consumers entitling the member consumers to benefits of the incentive program, the registration information including a payment identifier for each of the member consumers,   storing the registration information in a database that is in communication with the computer network;   providing transactional information to a payment processor from a payment system associated with a member business, the transactional information being comprised of information related to one or more purchases, information about the member business from which each of the one or more purchases was made, and information about the date of each of the one or more purchases, wherein the information related to one or more purchases includes the payment identifier associated with each of the respective purchases;   receiving transactional information associated with each of the one or more purchases from the payment processor;   comparing transactional information for each of the one or more purchases with the registration information associated with each of the member consumers;   determining based on the comparison whether the payment identifier associated with one of the purchases matches the payment identifier supplied by one of the member consumers;   rewarding the member consumer associated with the matching payment identifier in accordance with the benefits of the incentive program; and   parsing the transactional information associated with the payment identifier into one or more categories.   
     
     
         2 . The method described in  claim 1 , wherein the payment identifier may be comprised of information related to a mode of payment for conducting purchase transactions selected from the group consisting of credit cards, debit cards, or business registered cards. 
     
     
         3 . The method described in  claim 1 , including the step of providing each of the member consumers with customized home pages based on the purchase information that is stored in the database. 
     
     
         4 . The method described in  claim 3 , wherein the customized home page includes the total number of incentive points, where the benefits rewarded to the member consumer are directly related to the incentive points awarded to the member consumer. 
     
     
         5 . The method described in  claim 4 , wherein the incentive points are reward incentives selected from the group consisting of currency, frequent flyer miles, dining points or purchase vouchers. 
     
     
         6 . The method described in  claim 3 , wherein the customized home page displays an account history for the respective member consumer. 
     
     
         7 . The method described in  claim 1 , including the step of providing recommendations to member consumers for other member businesses based on the transactional information that is stored in the database. 
     
     
         8 . The method described in  claim 7 , wherein the recommendations that are provided to member consumers include identifying member businesses that are within a certain distance of the location of the member businesses from which the member consumer has previously made a purchase. 
     
     
         9 . The method described in  claim 7 , wherein the recommendations that are provided to member consumers include identifying member businesses that sell similar products as the member businesses from which the member consumer has made a previous purchase. 
     
     
         10 . The method described in  claim 9 , wherein the products that are sold by member businesses include products selected from the group consisting of food, clothing, articles of manufacture, vehicles, hotel services, or transportation services. 
     
     
         11 . The method described in  claim 7 , wherein the recommendations that are provided to member consumers include identifying member businesses that sell products in similar price ranges. 
     
     
         12 . The method described in  claim 7 , wherein the recommendations that are provided to member consumers include identifying member businesses that are offering specials on selected days of the week. 
     
     
         13 . The method described in  claim 7 , wherein the recommendations that are provided to member consumers include identifying times that correlate to times purchases by the respective member consumer were made. 
     
     
         14 . The method described in  claim 1 , wherein the payment identifier is converted into a secure identifier for each of the member consumers by applying a one-way hash algorithm to the payment identifier for each of the member consumers and thereby generating the secure identifier. 
     
     
         15 . A method for allowing member consumers to receive benefits associated with an incentive program, the method comprising:
 accepting via a computer network registration information for a plurality of member consumers entitling the member consumers to benefits of the incentive program, the registration information including a payment identifier for each of the member consumers,   storing the registration information in a database that is in communication with the computer network;   providing transactional information to a payment processor from a payment system associated with a member business, the transactional information being comprised of information related to one or more purchases, information about the member business from which each of the one or more purchases was made, and information about the date of each of the one or more purchases, wherein the information related to one or more purchases includes the payment identifier associated with each of the respective purchases;   receiving transactional information associated with each of the one or more purchases from the payment processor;   comparing transactional information for each of the one or more purchases with the registration information associated with each of the member consumers;   determining based on the comparison whether the payment identifier associated with one of the purchases matches the payment identifier supplied by one of the member consumers; and   rewarding the member consumer associated with the matching payment identifier in accordance with the benefits of the incentive program.