How Long Should Loyalty Points Last Before They Expire?
How Long Should Loyalty Points Last?
Twelve months from the last account activity is the answer that fits most stores. It is long enough that a normal customer never trips it, and short enough that abandoned balances clear out on a predictable schedule.
The key word is activity, not issue date. A rolling window resets every time the customer earns or redeems, so someone who orders twice a year never loses anything. A fixed expiry, where points issued in March die the following March, will eventually delete points from customers who are still buying from you, and that is the version that generates angry emails.
Shorter windows exist. Six months is aggressive but defensible for a store with a very fast repeat cycle, such as a consumable ordered monthly. Under six months is rarely worth the trust cost.
Longer windows are also fine. Plenty of stores run 24 months or no expiry at all, and for a small program on OpoShop with a modest outstanding balance, no expiry is a perfectly reasonable starting position.
Why Expiry Exists at All
Expiry is not there to save you money on your best customers. It exists for three specific reasons.
- Liability control: Every unredeemed point is an obligation. Balances from customers who left in 2023 sit on your books forever without expiry.
- Data hygiene: A member list where half the accounts have been dormant for two years makes every metric you calculate misleading.
- Mild urgency: A balance with a horizon is slightly more motivating than one that will sit there forever.
The liability reason is the honest one. If you have issued 900,000 points at a value of 5 cents per 100 points, that is $450 of outstanding obligation. Small. If you have issued 40 million points over four years, the picture changes, and a good portion of that will belong to people who are never coming back.
The urgency reason is real but overrated. Expiry creates urgency only if customers know about it, and customers who know about it mostly feel pressured rather than motivated. The much better urgency lever is a balance that is close to a reward, which is a message you can send at any time in your OpoShop store without threatening anyone.
Data hygiene is the quietly valuable one. Once dormant balances clear, your member count and redemption rate start describing your actual customer base rather than a historical archive.
Rolling Inactivity Expiry vs Fixed Expiry
These two policies sound similar and behave completely differently.
Rolling inactivity expiry means the clock resets on any account activity. A customer earns points in January, orders again in October, and their full balance now runs until the following October. Only genuinely dormant accounts lose anything.
Fixed expiry means points die a set time after they were issued, regardless of what the customer has done since. Points earned in January expire the next January even if the customer ordered five times in between.
The customer experience gap is enormous. Under rolling expiry, a customer has to disappear for a full year to lose points, which almost feels fair by definition. Under fixed expiry, an active customer can watch a balance shrink while they are still shopping with you, and they will read that as the store taking something back.
There is a third variant worth knowing about, which is expiry on the reward rather than on the points. Points never expire, but once a customer converts points into a reward code, that code is valid for say 90 days. This gets you urgency at the redemption moment without ever deleting earned value, and it is a clean option for stores on OpoShop that want motivation without risk.
How to Set an Expiry Policy
Set the policy once, write it down publicly, and build the warning emails before you switch it on.
Here is how the important parts play out.
1. Size the window against your repeat cycle
Find your typical gap between orders, then multiply by three or four. That is your floor.
A coffee brand where customers reorder every five weeks could run a six month window comfortably, since a customer would have to skip four or five reorders to lose anything. A home goods store where customers buy twice a year needs 18 to 24 months, because 12 would catch real customers on a slow year.
Getting this wrong in the tight direction is expensive. The customer who loses points is exactly the customer you were trying to win back.
2. Warn twice, and make the warning useful
The expiry email is one of the highest performing messages in a loyalty program, because it is specific, personal, and time-bound.
Send the first 30 days out. Include the exact balance, what it is currently worth in dollars, the expiry date, and a direct link to shop. Send a second one three to five days before the deadline for anyone who has not acted.
Notice what those emails really are. They are reactivation campaigns aimed at dormant customers, which is the group most stores struggle to reach at all. Merchants on OpoShop often find the expiry sequence brings back customers who ignored everything else.
3. Never apply points expiry to store credit
This is the one hard line. Points are value you issued for free, so expiring them after inactivity is normal and accepted. Store credit and gift card balances represent money a customer actually paid, and rules governing that kind of stored value differ by country and by state.
Keep the two balances separate and apply expiry only to the points side. If you offer gift cards or refund credit, check the rules that apply where you sell before attaching any expiry to them.
No Expiry vs Inactivity Expiry vs Fixed Reset
Three policies cover almost every store, and the right one depends mostly on how big your outstanding balance has grown.
| Policy | How it works | Best for | Watch-out |
|---|---|---|---|
| No expiry | Points last indefinitely | New or small programs with modest outstanding balances | Liability grows forever and dormant accounts distort your metrics |
| Rolling inactivity expiry | Clock resets on any earning or redemption | Most established stores, especially at 12 months | Needs warning emails or it reads as a silent clawback |
| Fixed annual reset | All points clear on a set calendar date | Stores running a deliberate annual program cycle | Punishes active customers and generates the most complaints |
No expiry is the friendliest option and the right default for a program in its first year. Your outstanding liability is small, and every point of goodwill matters more than the accounting tidiness.
Rolling inactivity expiry is where most stores should land once the program matures. It clears the dead weight, keeps your metrics honest, and an active customer will never notice it exists.
A fixed annual reset is the option to avoid unless your business genuinely runs on an annual cycle. It creates a moment where loyal customers lose value through no fault of their own, and no amount of email softens that well. For most OpoShop merchants it trades real customer trust for a small accounting convenience.
Expiry Mistakes That Cost You Customers
Points expiry is one of the few loyalty settings where a small error produces a loud reaction.
The first mistake is silent expiry. Deleting a balance with no warning email is the fastest way to turn a lapsed customer into someone who talks about your brand negatively. The warning costs nothing and often produces an order.
The second is a window shorter than the buying cycle. A 90 day expiry on a product people buy twice a year means the program only works for customers who were already your most frequent, which is the opposite of the goal.
The third is changing the policy retroactively. Applying a new six month expiry to points earned under a no-expiry program is the version customers find genuinely unfair. Apply new rules going forward and honor what was already earned.
The fourth is expiring store credit alongside points. Refund money and gift card balances are a different category, and treating them the same way creates real disputes.
The fifth is using expiry to fix a redemption problem. If almost nobody redeems, shortening the expiry window will not help. The threshold is too high or the balance is invisible, and both are fixable in your OpoShop settings in minutes.
What We Recommend for [OpoShop](https://oposhop.io) Merchants
Start with no expiry, then move to 12 month rolling inactivity once your outstanding balance is worth managing.
In year one, your unredeemed points probably total a few hundred dollars of value. Expiry buys you almost nothing at that scale and costs you goodwill with early members who are exactly the customers you want to keep. Leave it off and focus on making rewards reachable instead.
When your outstanding balance grows to a figure that would actually hurt if it were all claimed in one month, switch on a 12 month rolling window. Announce it 60 days in advance, apply it going forward, and build the two warning emails before the first balance expires. Perkly tracks points outstanding as a liability figure, which is the number that tells you when this switch is worth flipping.
Then leave the policy alone. Expiry is not a lever to tune quarterly. It is a background rule that should be boring, predictable, and easy for any customer to find and understand.
Best answer: Set points to expire after 12 months of account inactivity, with the clock resetting on every order or redemption, and send warning emails 30 days and 5 days before the deadline. If your program is new, run no expiry at all in your OpoShop store and add the inactivity window only once your outstanding balance grows large enough to be a real liability.
FAQs
Should loyalty points expire at all?
Not necessarily. A new program with a small outstanding balance is usually better off with no expiry, and the policy only becomes worth adding once unredeemed points represent a liability you would notice.
What is the difference between inactivity expiry and fixed expiry?
Inactivity expiry resets the clock every time a customer earns or redeems, so only dormant accounts lose points. Fixed expiry deletes points a set time after they were issued, which can hit customers who are still actively buying.
How much notice should I give before points expire?
At least 30 days, with a second reminder a few days before the deadline. Both emails should show the current balance, its dollar value, and the exact expiry date so the customer can act without doing any math.
Can I expire store credit the same way as points?
Treat them separately. Store credit and gift card balances represent money the customer paid, and the rules covering that kind of stored value vary by country and state, so check what applies where you sell.
Does expiry increase redemption?
It can produce a short burst around the deadline, but it is a weak long-term lever. A reachable reward threshold and a visible balance move redemption far more than any deadline.
Can I change my expiry policy after launching?
Yes, going forward. Announce the change well in advance and honor points already earned under the old terms, because retroactive expiry is the version customers treat as a broken promise.
Ready to run a rewards program customers trust? Set the policy up where your store already runs.
