Method and system for generating and controlling the distribution and use of personal promotion codes by targeted customers

• US 20090024472A1
• Filed: 07/20/2007
• Published: 01/22/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 07/20/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amadeus (Amadeus Global Travel Distribution S.A.)
• Original Assignee: Amadeus (Amadeus Global Travel Distribution S.A.)
• Inventors: Sjobring, Niklas, Triscornia, David, Andre, Arnaud
• Granted Patent: US 7,912,214 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.470
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0225 Avoiding frauds
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0248 Avoiding fraud

Abstract

A method and a system for generating personal promotion codes from the computing resources of a provider of services are described. Internal promotion codes including a family ID field and a serial ID field comprised of alphanumeric characters are first generated. The internal promotion codes are then encoded into a corresponding series of external promotion codes also comprised of alphanumeric characters, which render the internal promotion codes unintelligible. After which the series of external promotion codes is packed into an encrypted file which is forwarded to a client application of the provider of services to have the external promotion codes distributed to its customers. The external promotion codes later submitted to the client application by the customers are further validated by the provider of services.

Validation of the external promotion codes submitted by the customers does not require that all generated external promotion codes need to be stored in a database of the provider of services.

Claims

1. A method for generating unique personal promotion codes from computing resources of a provider of services (215), the method comprising the steps of:

generating internal promotion codes (300) including a family ID field (132) and a serial ID field (134) comprised of alphanumeric characters;

encoding the internal promotion codes into a corresponding series of external promotion codes (312), comprised of alphanumeric characters, to render the internal promotion codes unintelligible.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of encoding each internal promotion code into a corresponding external promotion code (120) includes the steps of:

converting the alphanumeric characters to integers (121);

calculating a first and a second checksum (122);

converting the integers to a binary array (123);

shifting a binary encoding key according to the second checksum (124);

shifting the binary array according to the first checksum (125);

xoring (bitwise adding modulo 2) the shifted binary encoded key and the shifted binary array (126);

converting back the xored binary array to integers (127);

inserting the first checksum and the second checksum into the xored array of integers (128);

converting back the inserted array of integers to alphanumeric characters (129);

thus, obtaining the corresponding external promotion code.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the steps of the method are backward executed to decode (420) the external promotion code and obtain the corresponding internal promotion code, including:

replacing the inserting step by the step of extracting a first and a second checksum and wherein the calculating step is skipped;

replacing the step of shifting the binary array by the step of shifting backward the binary array according to the extracted first checksum.

4. The method of claim 1 comprising the further steps of:

packing the series of external promotion codes (314) into an encrypted file (316);

forwarding the encrypted file to a client application (225) of the provider of services (215) to have the series of external promotion codes distributed (255) to customers (260) of the client application.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the external promotion codes submitted to the client application (265) by the customers (260) are further validated (272) by the provider of services on the basis of their structure.

6. The method of claim 3 wherein the validation of the submitted external promotion codes (410) is successful when all of the following steps succeed:

decoding of the external promotion code (420);

checking of the decoded internal promotion code against a predefined code syntax (430);

checking of the decoded internal promotion code against family information (450) fetched from a database of promotions (445);

checking that decoded internal promotion is not already present in database (460);

otherwise, validation of the submitted external promotion codes fails.

7. The method of claim 6 including the further step of storing in the database (445) the validated promotion codes.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the internal promotion code includes a family ID field comprising alphabetic characters in the range A-V and a serial ID field comprising numeral characters in the range 0-9.

9. A system (215) accepting personal promotion codes when booking services or selling goods online comprising means adapted for carrying out each step of the method according to claim 1.

10. A computer program product stored on a computer readable storage medium, comprising computer readable code means for causing at least one computer (215) to operate the method of generating and validating personal promotion codes according to claim 1.

11. The method of claim 5 wherein the validation of the submitted external promotion codes (410) is successful when all of the following steps succeed:

decoding of the external promotion code (420);

checking of the decoded internal promotion code against a predefined code syntax (430);

checking of the decoded internal promotion code against family information (450) fetched from a database of promotions (445);

checking that decoded internal promotion is not already present in database (460);

otherwise, validation of the submitted external promotion codes fails.