American Airlines and Research In Motion?s BlackBerry are collaborating on a promotion aimed at introducing travelers to the new AA.com Notification Center.

Running through Jan. 5, the "Free Your Memory" sweepstakes offers participants a chance to win one of 60 BlackBerry Curve 8900 smartphones, one of which comes with 300,000 AAdvantage frequent-flier miles. Consumers can register to win by playing the interactive memory game at http://www.aa.com/promo.

?American?s strategy is to align with one of our valuable partners in educating the public about our new Flight Status Notification enhancements,? said Marcy Letourneau, spokeswoman for American Airlines, Fort Worth, TX. ?With these enhancements, American Airlines customers can set up a profile on AA.com?they only need to set it up one time?and they?ll now automatically receive flight status notifications for all of their future flights.

?For American, partnering with BlackBerry is a great match, since more and more travelers today are receiving travel updates via their smartphone,? she said. ?Additionally, a high percentage of American?s customers are BlackBerry users, so this offering resonates with them.

?BlackBerry has been a partner of American?s through our AAdvantage program for many years, so we?ve teamed with them in the past for various offers.?

American Airlines, American Eagle and AmericanConnection serve 250 cities in 40 countries with more than 3,400 daily flights on average. American Airlines Inc. and American Eagle Airlines Inc. are subsidiaries of AMR Corp.

Mobile CRM
American Airlines? Notification Center, launched in 2009, is accessible from each customer's My Account section on AA.com.

The center lets customers set their flight status notification preferences one time and then automatically receive messages for all their future flights, as long as their AAdvantage number is included in their flight reservation.

When setting up a profile, customers choose how they would like American to notify them, by phone, text message or e-mail.

The following is an example of a text message a customer would receive:?FLIGHT INFO AA 1234 ON TIME  DEPARTS DFW 11:30AM GATE A23 ARRIVES ORD 12:52PM GATE B34  BAG B35?

The AA.com Notification Center also makes sharing these updates easier by letting AAdvantage members save up to 10 contacts in their profile.

American then will automatically provide the member?and the member's selected contacts?with desired flight information.

Customers can receive one sweepstakes entry by playing the interactive memory game and registering at http://www.aa.com/promo.

Registrants may also earn additional entries by referring a friend to the sweepstakes and by updating or creating their profile on AA.com.

The total number of sweepstakes entries allowed per person is three. No purchase is necessary to enter.

Promoting the promotion
The call-to-action is to learn about American Airlines? profile-based notification center, for consumers to update their profile and to tell friends about the promotion to be entered to win a BlackBerry smartphone.

The goal is to get people more engaged on the site and to either create or update their profile on AA.com.

American Airlines is getting the word out about the promotion via several channels.

These include the AA.com home page and various pages on AA.com, upcoming American Way magazine issues, placing the call-to-action on printed-out boarding passes, AA?s Facebook pages and other social media sites, online banner ads, email communications to opted-in AA customers and radio spots in selected markets.

While American Airlines does have a mobile-optimized version of its site, it does not link to the BlackBerry promotion at this time due to Flash-compatibility issues.

However, any flight notifications requested in a customer?s profile can be sent as a text message or voicemail to his or her mobile phone. Or, if consumers choose to receive their flight notifications via email, they can, of course, read emails on their smartphone.

?We?re targeting anyone who is looking to simplify the travel process,? Ms. Letourneau said. ?The promotions certainly will appeal to our customers who book and fly on American, but you don?t have to be an American Airlines customer to learn about our notification feature and/or enter for a chance to win.?