Patent ID: 7693786

Claim:
A communication system comprising: a first management apparatus for managing and settling a first transaction and generating a first privilege information generated in accordance with the first transaction, the first transaction being a virtual transaction, the virtual transaction being a transaction conducted between the first management apparatus and a user terminal, located at a remote location, without a point-of-sale terminal via a network using a user identifier that identifies the user in such a manner that the first privilege information and the user identifier are correlated with each other, wherein the user identifier is stored in an IC card and uniquely associates the user to the IC card, and the first transaction is made using the IC card in conjunction with the user terminal; and a second management apparatus for managing and settling a second transaction and generating a second privilege information that is generated in accordance with the second transaction, the second transaction being a real world transaction, the real world transaction being a transaction conducted between the second management apparatus and the user via a point-of-sale terminal, and using the user identifier in such a manner that the second privilege information and the user identifier are correlated with each other, wherein the second transaction includes a settlement processing based on the user identifier and a price, and is also made using the IC card in conjunction with the point-of-sale terminal, and wherein the second management apparatus converts the first privilege information that is managed by the first management apparatus into privilege information managed by the second management apparatus according to a prescribed conversion factor, and manages the privilege information obtained by the result of the conversion, such that the first privilege information is converted to the second privilege information and added to a total of the second privilege information for the user in response to a request from the user terminal to the second management apparatus to convert the first privilege information to the second privilege information.