System for awarding credits to persons who book travel-related reservations

A computerized system provides incentives for travel agents and similar persons to book particular travel-related reservations. The system achieves this by awarding cumulative credits to travel agents based upon bookings of travel-related reservations. The system receives a booking format which identifies a travel-related reservation. The system further receives a code which identifies a travel agent or other person who entered the travel-related reservation. Upon receiving the travel-related reservation, the system assigns cumulative credits to the travel agent identified by the code based upon the travel-related reservation. Travel agents can thus build up credits over time based upon their bookings of travel-related reservations and use those credits to receive a particular award or prize.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
The present invention relates to a system for providing incentives to 
persons who book travel-related reservations by awarding credits to those 
persons based upon the travel-related reservations. 
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
Travel agents and similar persons book most travel-related reservations. As 
an example, consider hotel reservations. Many customers book hotel 
reservations through a travel agent when the customer, for example, 
reserves airline tickets. Travel agents have a certain amount of 
discretion to recommend various hotels to travelers. Therefore, hotel 
companies have a strong interest in providing incentives for travel agents 
to recommend their hotels. 
An incentives system that provides rewards to travel agents on a random 
basis is the World of Winners sweepstakes program, developed by Radisson 
Hotels International, Inc., the assignee of the present application. In 
the World of Winners sweepstakes program, for example, every tenth 
reservation booked in a particular hotel results in the travel agent 
receiving a reward or prize. The random nature of the World of Winners 
sweepstakes programs, however, reduces the incentive of travel agents to 
book travel-related reservations for particular hotels. When participating 
in such programs, travel agents do not know with certainty whether booking 
a hotel reservation for a particular hotel will result in an award. 
Some systems have provided incentives to travel agencies based on booked 
reservations. These systems, however, do not necessarily provide personal 
incentives to individual travel agents, since the systems are not on-line 
and the agency itself receives any awards or prizes based on booked 
reservations. Companies providing travel services thus do not necessarily 
gain significant benefits from these programs, since the individual travel 
agents have much discretion in making reservations and are not necessarily 
motivated by incentives and awards for the agency. 
Therefore, a need exists for a system which provides incentives for travel 
agents and similar persons to book particular travel-related reservations 
by awarding cumulative credits to those travel agents based upon the 
bookings. 
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
A computerized system awards credits to persons who book travel-related 
reservations. The system receives a booking format which includes a 
plurality of fields. At least one of the fields includes information 
identifying a travel-related reservation. The system further transmits a 
code which identifies a person who created or initiated the travel-related 
reservation. Upon receiving the travel-related reservation, the system 
cumulatively assigns credits to the person identified by the code based 
upon the travel-related reservation. Therefore, persons who enter 
travel-related reservations may build up credits over time and use those 
credits to receive a particular incentive such as an award or prize. 
The system can also verify the credits according to predefined criteria, 
classify the credits as pending or redeemable, or provide on-line feedback 
regarding credits which could have been assigned if the person did not 
elect to receive credits.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
In the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment, 
reference is made to the accompanying drawings which form a part hereof 
and in which is shown by way of illustration a specific embodiment in 
which the invention may be practiced. This embodiment is described in 
sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the 
invention, and it is to be understood that other embodiments may be 
utilized and that structural or logical changes may be made without 
departing from the scope of the present invention. The following detailed 
description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the 
scope of the present invention is defined by the appended claims. 
Overview 
The present invention is an awards system that provides incentives to 
travel agents or other persons who book travel-related reservations. The 
system typically interacts with a travel agent on-line to assign credits 
for travel-related reservations and thus provide the travel agent with 
immediate feedback regarding the credits earned. A travel agent can 
continually earn credits during a period of time. Each credit earned by 
the travel agent is added into a cumulative total number of credits for 
the travel agent. 
Therefore, the travel agent can "build up" credits over time and then "cash 
in" the credits for an award. The available awards are typically 
structured so that, as the value of the award increases, more credits are 
required to earn the award. An award offered to a travel agent may 
include, for example, a free stay at an hotel or a free travel package. 
The present invention thus provides incentives for travel agents to 
repeatedly book particular travel-related reservations, which can 
significantly increase bookings for those companies which provide the 
awards. 
A key to making the present invention commercially viable involves 
determining how to implement the invention. Since most travel agents work 
through reservation systems (described below) that are already 
established, implementing such a system involves determining how to 
interact with the existing reservation systems. 
A commercial system which has achieved a successful implementation of the 
present invention is the LOOK TO BOOK travel agent incentives program, 
developed by Radisson Hotels International, Inc. (hereinafter Radisson), 
the assignee of the present application. The incentives which the LOOK TO 
BOOK program provides to travel agents, and the corresponding increase in 
travel-related reservations, are evident from the following statistics. 
After introduction of the LOOK TO BOOK program by Radisson, travel agents 
began immediately enrolling in the program at a rate of approximately 350 
travel agents per day. As of October 1993, approximately 52,000 travel 
agents have enrolled in the LOOK TO BOOK program, which is about one-sixth 
of the world's population of automated travel agents. Furthermore, travel 
agent bookings for Radisson have increased by approximately 60% following 
introduction of the LOOK TO BOOK program. This has occurred without any 
particular change in advertising or other marketing efforts for Radisson. 
A travel agent research project conducted for Radisson by a local 
university showed that travel agents were much more willing to book 
Radisson Hotels because of the LOOK TO BOOK program. 
Travel Reservations Network 
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing how a system which implements the present 
invention typically interfaces with a reservation system. A travel agent 
uses a terminal 10 to enter a travel-related reservation. The present 
application describes the invention with respect to a travel agent 
reservation system for illustrative purposes. Persons other than travel 
agents may also enter travel-related reservations. Travel-related 
reservations include, for example, reservations for the following: cruise 
ships; car rental; lodging; theater; travel insurance; airline tickets; 
and trains. 
A travel agent terminal 10 transmits the travel-related reservation to a 
computerized reservation system 12. Computerized Reservation Systems (CRS) 
are well known in the art and include, for example, CRS's known by the 
following trademarks and companies: AMADEUS; SABRE; WORLDSPAN; SYSTEM ONE; 
APOLLO; GEMINI; GALILEO; and AXESS. 
A CRS allows a travel agent or other person to enter a travel-related 
reservation in a particular availability format. An availability format 
depends on the type of CRS used and typically comprises a plurality of 
fields joined together to form a database element. An availability format 
may include, for example, fields for the following information: rate 
availability; hotel chain code; city code; arrival date; checkout date; 
number of nights; category code; action code; and all rates. An example of 
an availability format is shown on line 100 in FIG. 6. 
A conversion system 14 receives an availability format, which identifies a 
travel-related reservation, from CRS 12. Conversion system 14 then 
converts the travel-related reservation contained within an availability 
format into a standard booking format. An example of a conversion system 
is the PIERRE computer system, developed by Radisson, the assignee of the 
present application. Therefore, regardless of which CRS 112 a travel agent 
uses, conversion system 14 preferably converts availability formats into a 
standardized booking format. An example of a booking format is shown on 
line 102 in FIG. 6. In addition to receiving travel-related reservations 
from a travel agent terminal, via a CRS, awards system 16 can also receive 
travel-related reservations from other sources, such as the following 
examples: a phone (modem) link; an automatic teller machine; a kiosk, and 
an interactive television system. 
Conversion system 14 can then transmit a booking format to a particular 
reservation facility 18. Reservation facility 18 may include, for example, 
a particular hotel, cruise ship line, or car rental company identified by 
a travel-related reservation contained within a booking format. 
Awards System 
The present invention is preferably implemented by an awards system 16 
which interacts with conversion system 14, as shown in FIG. 1. Awards 
system 16 receives information regarding travel-related reservations from 
conversion system 14 and awards credits (also referred to as "points") to 
travel agents or other persons who book the travel-related reservations. 
FIG. 2 is a flow chart showing a booking process, which is typically a main 
processing loop, of awards system 16. Awards system 16 typically first 
processes a booking format at step 20. At step 22, awards system 16 checks 
the booking format for an identification of a travel agent or other person 
who entered the travel-related reservation. If the booking format does not 
have such an identification, awards system 16 then calculates credits 
which would have otherwise been assigned to the person (step 24) and then 
displays a message (step 26) to the person at terminal 10, indicating the 
number of credits which were lost by the individual. An example of a user 
interface for this transaction is shown in FIG. 6. Lines 104 in FIG. 6 
show an example of an "unsuccessful enrollment" message. 
If the booking format includes an identification, awards system 16 checks 
to determine if the identification is a new travel agent not already 
within a database for awards system 16 (step 28). Awards system 16 
typically receives an identification of a travel agent or other person 
from one of the fields of a booking format. For example, a travel agent 
can enter a character string identification into a special instruction 
(SI) field 110 (see FIG. 7) of a booking format. In the example shown, the 
character string comprises the first initial, middle initial, and last 
name of the travel agent. Other character strings or codes may be used as 
an identification of the travel agent or other person who made the 
booking. Alternatively, awards system 16 may receive an identification 
from a log-in identifier corresponding to a travel agent or other person. 
In some systems which may interface awards system 16, a person who enters 
bookings must log on to the system with an identifier. Therefore, awards 
system 16 can receive such a log-in identifier and will not require a 
separate identification of the travel agent or other person. 
If the identification is not a new travel agent, awards system 16 then 
calculates the credits (step 30) and displays the credits awarded (step 
32) to the travel agent, along with a corresponding message. An example of 
a user interface for this transaction is shown in FIG. 8. Lines 108 in 
FIG. 8 show an example of a message for indicating the number of credits 
awarded. The "0" redeemable credits shown in lines 108 of FIG. 8 
preferably becomes incremented with each booking to show a cumulative 
credits awarded to the corresponding travel agent or similar person. 
Awards system 16 preferably stores cumulative credits, as shown displayed 
in FIG. 8, from one booking to the next so that awards system 16 can 
increment or decrement total credits as new booking are made. In addition 
to displaying credits or points awarded directly on-line to a travel 
agent, as shown in FIG. 8, awards system 16 can "park" such information in 
the background so that credits awarded information is accessible to a 
travel agent via a terminal. 
Otherwise, awards system 16 determines at step 34 if the travel agent is 
eligible for the program. If the travel agent is not eligible, awards 
system 16 displays a standard message at step 40, such as lines 104 in 
FIG. 6. If the travel agent is eligible, awards system 16 then calculates 
the credits (step 36) and displays a new enrollment message (step 38). An 
example of an interface for this transaction is shown in FIG. 7. Lines 106 
in FIG. 7 show an example of a "new enrollment" message. 
FIG. 3 is a flow chart of a process for awarding or assigning credits. At 
step 42, awards system 16 begins processing a travel-related reservation. 
Awards system 16 verifies the credits with the actual travel-related 
reservation at step 44. Verification is performed to prevent fraud and to 
ensure that the credits are issued for a travel-related reservation which 
was actually used by a customer requesting the reservation. When awards 
system 16 initially assigns credits, those credits are typically 
classified as "pending" until awards system 16 performs a verification 
process. A travel agent preferably may not "cash in" credits while the 
credits are classified as pending. If awards system 16 determines in the 
verification that the credits comply with the actual reservation (step 
46), then awards system 16 converts the credits from pending to redeemable 
or spendable at step 48. Otherwise, awards system 16 typically transfers 
the credits to an error queue at step 50 for manual processing. 
A verification of the credits is typically based upon both an event and 
time. For example, with respect to hotel reservations, awards system 16 
typically waits until a customer who requested the hotel reservation 
checks out of the corresponding hotel. Subsequently, awards system 16 
typically waits for a predetermined period of time, such as ten days, to 
verify that the customer indeed used the hotel reservation. Finally, after 
the waiting period, awards system 16 converts the pending credits to 
redeemable credits. Alternatively, verification may be based solely upon 
either an event or time. 
FIG. 4 is a flow chart of a process for calculating credits. Awards system 
16 typically awards credits based upon the revenue for a particular 
travel-related reservation booking, which occurs at step 52. Other types 
of calculations for credits are possible. For example, awards system 16 
may simply award a predetermined number of credits for any particular 
booking. For lodging reservations, awards system 16 may, for example, 
award credits based on how many nights of lodging a customer has 
requested. At step 54, awards system 16 determines whether bonus credits 
apply. Bonus credits supply additional incentives to the travel agents by 
increasing the number of credits that the travel agent may receive for a 
particular booking. If bonus credits apply, awards system 16 then 
calculates the bonus credits at step 56 for each particular bonus program. 
Awards system 16 also calculates the standard credits available for the 
booking (step 58). 
Awards system 16 uses bonus programs to award additional credits to a 
travel agent based upon a predetermined activity in conjunction with a 
booking. Examples of predetermined activities, which may increase credits 
awarded, include the following: a product booked by a travel agent (for 
example, a travel package); lodging booked by a travel agent (for example, 
a type of hotel); when a travel agent books the travel-related 
reservation; when a customer who requested the travel-related reservation 
uses the travel-related reservation; how a customer pays for the 
travel-related reservation (for example, using a particular type of credit 
card); how a customer guarantees the travel-related reservation; a class 
of a customer (for example, age); or a class of a travel agent (for 
example, travel agent credit level or group affiliation). 
At step 60, awards system 16 determines whether the travel agent who 
entered the reservation is a new travel agent or a travel agent already 
within a database for awards system 16. If the travel agent is already in 
a database, awards system 16 calculates the total pending credits at step 
62 and then retrieves the total redeemable credits for the corresponding 
travel agent at step 64. Awards system 16 also preferably modifies 
cumulative credits as bookings are adjusted or cancelled. 
FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing how awards system 16 interfaces with an 
administrative system 94 for administrating and awarding prizes based upon 
the credits. In addition to on-line reporting of credits through CRS's, 
awards system 16 may also generate printed documents reporting credits via 
system 94. An example of a hard copy report of credits is shown in FIG. 9. 
Periodically, typically every 30 days, awards system 16 transmits a storage 
medium (step 66) which includes information related to processing within 
awards system 16. A storage medium may be transmitted to an outside vendor 
or, alternatively, functions of administrative system 94 may be performed 
by awards system 16. Submodule 70 receives the information and performs 
audit programs on the data. A travel agent master file 72 preferably 
maintains a database of the travel agents stored within awards system 16 
and the corresponding credits awarded to the travel agents. File 72 also 
preferably maintains identifiers for agencies which engage the travel 
agents, which may be work addresses for travel agents. Submodule 78 adds 
new travel agents to the master file. Submodule 86 performs the function 
of sending enrollment kits to the new enrollees, which includes 
information on the program and rules for receiving prizes and awards based 
upon credits earned. 
Submodule 74 receives and processes mail and telephone orders. Submodule 76 
receives certificate orders. A travel agent typically submits an order for 
the purpose of redeeming earned credits for an award or prize. Submodule 
80 updates the database for new addresses of enrollees. Submodule 82 
updates the master file with new credits awarded, based upon credits 
calculated by submodule 84. Submodule 90 generates summary reports of 
credits and, based upon this information, submodule 92 generates 
statements of credits for reporting to travel agents. These statements are 
then typically mailed to participating travel agents in order to report 
their credits. At step 68, system 94 periodically, typically every 30 
days, sends updated information to awards systems 16. 
While the present invention has been described in connection with the 
preferred embodiment thereof, it will be understood that many 
modifications will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art, and 
this application is intended to cover any adaptations or variations 
thereof. It is manifestly intended that this invention be limited only by 
the claims and equivalents thereof.