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About Electronic Vouchers

Electronic vouchers can be issued to customers and used by them to obtain redemption products. For information about creating vouchers, see Creating Vouchers for Loyalty Members.

When Are Vouchers Issued?

Siebel Loyalty issues a voucher for a redemption transaction based on the product type being redeemed. It issues a voucher in the following cases:

• The product type is Electronic Voucher.
• The product is a bundled product (that is, it is a packaged product) and at least one of its constituent products is of type: electronic voucher. In this case, Siebel Loyalty issues one voucher for each constituent product of type electronic voucher.
• The Assign Voucher action is satisfied in any of the promotions while processing the redemption transaction, and the voucher type is specified in the promotion action (that is, the Use from Transaction flag is not selected).

The expiry date of the voucher is determined by the voucher expiry date that is set up when the voucher product is created. For more information about creating voucher products, see Creating Vouchers for Loyalty Members.

Difference Between Vouchers for Flight and Nonflight Redemptions

Vouchers are used differently for flight and nonflight redemptions:

• Flight Redemptions. Vouchers are not used for most flight redemptions. When vouchers are used for flight redemptions, the electronic voucher or redemption log number is used as a form of payment for the airline or internal partner to issue a ticket to the member. Once the reservation system issues the ticket, it flags the electronic voucher as Availed to prevent anyone else from using it. The reservation system automatically sends a notification to Siebel Loyalty on the electronic voucher's usage.
• Nonflight Redemptions. Vouchers are generally used for nonflight redemptions for services, such as a stay at a hotel room or a car rental. The member quotes the voucher number as a form of payment to the partner who provides the service. The partner validates the activity with the loyalty program operations. The program operators manually change the voucher status to Reserved. This status prevents the member from quoting the voucher number to another partner to obtain a redemption product. Once the member goes to the partner and presents the voucher to use the redemption, the Partner contacts loyalty program operations or sends a batch of redemption transactions to change the status of the vouchers to Availed or Used.

Partner Payment for Redemption Vouchers

Partners need to receive payment for the products or services used by the members of the loyalty program during redemption. Partners submit redemption transactions and send invoices for payment by the loyalty program.

Depending on the partnership agreement, redemption vouchers can be immediately validated, used and paid, as is the case with airline redemption. In this case, the Loyalty operation does not wait for the member to fly on the partner airline, but pays the partner when issuing the redemption ticket, through the bank settlement plan of the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

Some airlines follow a different business practice. The electronic vouchers are used at the time of lifting the first coupon in the ticket instead of the time of ticket issue.

An issued voucher that is used, cannot be expired for revenue recognition, and attains the Invoiced status when a partner payable is created against the voucher.

Voucher Status Validation

You can validate the voucher status at the time of redemption with the LOY Voucher Service business service, using the VoucherValidityCheck method. This method validates the voucher using input parameters on the membership number, Partner Id, voucher number, and activity date. It determines whether the voucher validation is successful or not. For more information on this business service and method, see Siebel CRM Web Services Reference.

Redemption Voucher Status

The redemption voucher undergoes the following status during the voucher's life cycle, for nonflight redemption:

• Available. Siebel Loyalty issues the voucher to the member.
• Cancelled. The member returns the voucher to the loyalty program operations to cancel the voucher.
• Reserved. The member uses the voucher to book a partner product or service.
• Used. The member presents the voucher for the partner product or service. To attain this status, the partner has to notify Siebel Loyalty about the availability of the voucher.
• Invoiced. The partner sends an invoice against the voucher.
• Paid. The Finance department makes payment against the invoice and voucher.
• Expired. The revenue is recognized after a defined time period from the expiry date.
• Closed. The voucher is closed and cannot be used.
• Reissued. A voucher is reissued when another voucher is issued in its place. A voucher can be reissued only if it is in either of the statuses: Available or Reserved. For example, if a voucher V1 goes into the Reissued status when another voucher, V2, is issued in its place, then after the reissue process, the V1 status is Reissued, and the new voucher V2 status is either Available or Reserved. Voucher V2 contains a reference to the original voucher, V1.

Voucher Revenue Recognition

In the Redemption Voucher model described in Process of Setting Up Nonflight Redemptions, the member uses the voucher as a form of payment to obtain a redemption product. Every voucher has an expiry date. The member needs to use the voucher to obtain the redemption product or service prior to the expiry date.

Siebel Loyalty validates each used voucher by checking the date of activity against the expiry date of the voucher. If the date of the activity occurs after the voucher expiry date, then the loyalty program rejects the voucher.

Occasionally, the information for a voucher used before its expiration date is not sent to Siebel Loyalty until after the expiration date has passed. To handle such occurrences, Siebel Loyalty creates an additional time window for the voucher to completely expire, and to recognize revenue against the voucher. This time window is the amount of time after a voucher's expiration date when it can still be used. At the end of this time period, if the voucher is not yet used, then the voucher's status is changed to Expired, and the revenue is recognized.