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By default, points earned or issued through your reward program do not expire and remain in the customer’s account forever. When points expiry is enabled, customers’ points balances are reset to zero after a specified period of inactivity. Before a customer’s points balance is reset to zero, they are sent warning emails to give them an opportunity to prevent their points from expiring.
Feature availability: Points expiry is available on Growth, Plus, and Enterprise plans.

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Customer activity & inactivity

Anything that changes a customer’s points balance is considered “activity” and will prevent their points from expiring. This includes earning more points (whether from placing orders, social sharing, celebrating a birthday, etc), redeeming points (for discounts), or manually being issued points (including via a points import). For the purposes of points expiry, the customer is considered inactive if during the specified points expiry period, the customer has not had any activity.

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When points expire

A customer’s entire points balance expires all-at-once, and each individual point earned does not have it’s own specific expiry date. Points expiry dates are calculated in UTC. The date that a customer’s points balance expires is based on whichever is the later of:
  • The date of the customer’s last activity, OR
  • The date points expiry was enabled, OR
  • The date that the expiry period was updated (only when reducing the expiry period)
The points expiry period is then added to this date to determine when the customer’s points balance will be reset to zero if no further activity occurs. If additional activity occurs before the expiry date, then the expiry date is recomputed and no points are removed in the meantime.

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How points delay affects expiry

When points delay is turned on, points earned from an order do not count as customer activity until they are released at the end of the delay period. The delay period itself does not count toward points expiry. Once the points are released, the customer’s expiry date is recalculated based on that activity.

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Turning points expiry back on

If points expiry is turned off and later turned back on, any previous expiry date is cleared and a new expiry period starts from the date points expiry is re-enabled. Time that a customer was inactive while points expiry was turned off does not count toward their expiry period. Turning points expiry back on will not immediately expire points or send expiry warning emails. Warning emails will follow the new expiry schedule.

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Points expiry examples

Tip: The simplest way to describe expiry to your customers is:“All of your points will expire if you have not earned or redeemed points for a continuous period of 1 year. We will always warn you before your points expire.”

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Points expiry emails

When points expiry is first enabled, no emails or messaging will be sent to customers. When a customer’s points are nearing expiry, customers will receive two warning emails, based on the notification thresholds you have configured. These emails are designed to give the customer an opportunity to perform additional qualifying activity and prevent their points from expiring. These emails can be customized. When a customer’s points balance expires and is reset to zero, no emails or messaging will be sent to the customer.
Important: To prevent spam complaints and maintain email deliverability, points expiry emails are not sent to customers who:
  • Have unsubscribed from “promotional” emails, or,
  • Have never placed an order/earned points from an explicit action
Notable, this means that customers whose points were awarded via a points import and have not otherwise participated in the program will not receive any kind of email before their points expire.