Patent ID: 8032410

Claim:
A method of coupon generation, delivery, and redemption, the method comprising: using a coupon generation processor to generate a coupon including: selecting offers from a plurality of possible offers for commercial advantage stored in a database, wherein selecting the offers is based on prior purchasing behavior of a customer at a retailer, wherein the coupon generation processor accesses an individual customer account stored in the database to determine the prior purchasing behavior of the customer, and the individual customer account is associated with the customer and a financial instrument previously used by the customer to make a purchase at the retailer, generating a coupon identification code for the coupon, the coupon identification code including an account identifier linking the coupon identification code to the individual customer account, wherein the coupon identification code links the selected offers to the coupon, and storing the coupon identification code to the database; electronically delivering the coupon to the customer, the coupon including the coupon identification code; processing the coupon at a point-of-sale terminal in communication with the database as part of a retail transaction, wherein processing the coupon includes: entering the coupon identification code into the point-of-sale terminal, using the coupon identification code entered into the point-of-sale terminal to identify the selected offers, comparing available ones of the selected offers to one or more products being purchased via the point-of-sale terminal as part of the retail transaction, using the point-of-sale terminal to apply a discount to a purchase price of any of the one or more products being purchased that correspond to available ones of the selected offers, and accepting, at the point-of-sale terminal, a financial instrument provided during the retail transaction as payment for the one or more products being purchased; and comparing the financial instrument provided during the retail transaction to the financial instrument associated with the individual customer account, and if the financial instrument provided during the retail transaction differs from the financial instrument associated with the individual customer account linked to the coupon identification code of the coupon provided during the retail transaction, linking the financial instrument provided during the retail transaction to the individual customer account stored in the database.