Patent ID: 8370200

Claim:
A method of distributing electronic certificates comprising: receiving, at a computer system comprising one or more computers, instructions for issuing electronic certificates from one or more certificate issuers, with the respective certificates associated with one or more products and/or services; establishing a communications link between the computer system and one or more remote devices communicatively coupled to one or more remote users; receiving, by the computer system, user data from the remote devices; enabling receipt of communications from one of the remote users operating at least one of the remote devices by the computer system over the communications link to access and select one or more offers for said electronic certificates using said user data; storing, using the one or more computers, certificate files in a database, the certificate files containing information relating to one or more of the electronic certificates offered to and selected by the one remote user; and processing, using the one or more computers, data for one or more of the selected certificates contained in the database, to cause discounts corresponding to one or more of the selected certificates to be automatically activated in response to purchase at a retail outlet of one or more products and/or services associated with said selected one or more certificates, where a card identifying an account associated with said one remote user and said retail outlet is presented with the purchase.