Patent ID: 8688511

Claim:
A computer-based consolidated consumer rewards system configured to communicate information on consumers with multiple merchant-consumer rewards systems, the consolidated consumer rewards system comprising: a consolidated consumer rewards platform including a computer with a processor and memory, the computer being programmed and connected to a network to receive, store and transmit data in a consumer rewards database that contains information on consumers, merchants and merchant-consumer rewards systems and card vendor systems; the consolidated consumer rewards platform computer configured to receive and store in the consumer rewards database individual consumer data including demographic information; the consolidated consumer rewards platform computer configured to create a unique consumer number for each consumer identified by the consumer data after the consumer data including demographic information is received and stored in the consumer rewards database, and to assign a unique merchant number to multiple merchants in the consumer rewards database, each of the multiple merchants having a merchant-consumer rewards system that is communicatively connected to the consolidated consumer rewards platform; the consolidated consumer rewards platform computer configured to determine in connection with a consumer purchase transaction if a purchasing consumer's data is in the consumer rewards database of the consolidated consumer rewards platform, and to enroll a consumer in the consolidated consumer rewards platform with the consumer data and assign a unique consumer number to a newly enrolled consumer; the consolidated consumer rewards platform computer configured to transmit consumer data and unique consumer numbers to one or more merchants in the consolidated consumer rewards platform; the consolidated consumer rewards platform computer configured to link each consumer number to one or more payment devices of a card vendor system; the consolidated consumer rewards platform computer configured to automatically enroll a consumer at a merchant point of sales system in a merchant-consumer rewards system of a merchant in the consolidated consumer rewards platform, and the consolidated consumer rewards platform computer configured to update consumer demographic information in the consolidated consumer rewards platform and to automatically provide updated consumer demographic information to each merchant-consumer rewards system in the consolidated consumer rewards platform.