Patent ID: 8140386

Claim:
A method of distributing promotional offers to consumers, the method comprising: establishing a list of electronic contact addresses for a plurality of consumers; creating a plurality of enabled promotional offers, each enabled promotional offer including validation information that identifies it with a particular consumer; distributing the enabled promotional offers, from one or more source sites, via the electronic contact addresses for the plurality of consumers, wherein the enabled promotional offers can be electronically accepted by at least some of the particular consumers with whom they are identified without redeeming the accepted offers; upon the electronic acceptance of at least one of the enabled promotional offers by at least one consumer, placing the unredeemed accepted promotional offer in a coupon database associated with the at least one consumer; establishing or maintaining an association of the at least one consumer's coupon database with the at least one consumer's payment system; and electronically receiving a redemption of the accepted promotional offer by means of the consumer's presentment of the associated payment system for purchasing the subject matter of the accepted promotional offer.