Patent ID: 7152042

Claim:
A method for administering an on-line auction for an incentive points redemption facility including a catalog of potential auction items, and a participant database comprising participant records, wherein each participant record includes a participant identifier and an incentive point value total available to the participant to bid, the method comprising the steps of: designating, for an auction, a set of auction items from the catalog of potential auction items; providing on-line bid access to the set of auction items by authorized participants, the providing on-line access step comprising for an authorized participant: retrieving, for on-line presentation at a terminal of the authorized participant, data corresponding to an item from the set of auction items, the data including a description of the item and data relating to a current minimum qualifying bid value for the item: receiving, via an on-line computer interface; a bid by the authorized participant for the item; and determining, by reference to an available incentive point value total for the total for the authorized participant; whether the new bid exceeds a point total available to the authorized participant; maintaining at least a high bid for each item in the set of auction items; and identifying, upon ending an auction period, a participant corresponding to a highest covered bid by referencing at least the high bid for each item.