Point expiration gives customers a reason to come back and use their points. You choose whether points expire after a time without activity or a set time after they're earned, and you can email customers a reminder before their points expire.
Point expiration and its reminder email need a plan that includes Points expiry. If your plan doesn't include it, you'll see Points expiry needs a higher plan with a See plans link.
Turn on point expiration
When you turn on point expiration, shorten the time or switch to A set time after they're earned, points already past the new limit expire at the next daily check, without a reminder email. Let your customers know first.
In the Appstle Loyalty app, click Ways to earn.
In Rules for every way to earn, click Change in the editor. The Points program editor opens on Settings.
Open Points expiry.
Turn on Points expire.
Under How points expire, choose After a time without activity or A set time after they're earned. The table below explains the difference.
In After, enter a number and choose days, months or years.
Click Save.
Choose how points expire
Your choice under How points expire decides when the countdown starts:
Option | What happens |
After a time without activity | All of a customer's points expire once they've had no activity for the time you set. Any activity restarts the countdown. |
A set time after they're earned | Each batch of points expires the set time after it was earned, whatever the customer does. |
Earning or redeeming points counts as activity, and so does any change you make to a customer's points.
Examples
1 month without activity: a customer with no activity for 30 days loses all their points. If they earn or redeem points before then, the countdown starts again.
3 months after they're earned: points a customer earns on March 1 expire 90 days later, at the end of May, whatever the customer does in between.
Remind customers before their points expire
Appstle Loyalty can email customers before their points expire. The Points Expiring Reminder email is off by default. To turn it on:
Go to More → Email Templates.
Next to Points Expiring Reminder, click Edit.
On the Global tab, select Enable Email Notification.
In Points Expiring Reminder (days before), enter how many days before expiry to send the email. Leave it empty to use the default of 3 days.
Click Save.
Things to know
A month counts as 30 days and a year as 365 days.
Points are checked for expiry once a day. Store credit and pending points aren't affected.
With A set time after they're earned, points a customer redeems come out of their oldest points first.
With A set time after they're earned, points a customer gets back by returning a reward count as newly earned, so they expire the set time after the return. See Let customers return unused rewards for their points.
Signed-in customers see an expiry date next to their points balance in the loyalty popup and on the loyalty page. It's their last activity plus your expiry time, even with A set time after they're earned, so in that mode their oldest points can expire before the date they see.
To hide the date, go to Design → Customize → Content. Under Balances and empty sections, turn off Show points expiry date. If it isn't listed, click the Show … more link at the bottom of that group first.
Point expiration used to be in Advanced Settings. It's now in the Points program editor under Settings, and the reminder days are in the Points Expiring Reminder email template. Your existing settings carry over.
Reward codes and store credit have their own expiry settings, Reward code expiry and Store credit expiry, in the same Settings list. For reward codes, see Set up reward code expiration.
Troubleshooting
Customers don't get the reminder email: check that Enable Email Notification is selected in the Points Expiring Reminder template, that the Appstle Loyalty app embed is on in your theme (Online Store → Themes → Customize → App embeds), and that Show loyalty on your store is on in Design → Customize → Visibility. To see why one customer didn't get it, open them in Customers and check their Activity Logs.
Some customers got no reminder: the email goes out on the day a customer is exactly the set number of days from expiry. Customers who were already closer to expiry when you turned the email on or changed your settings don't get one.
A customer lost points they should have kept: open them in Customers, click Manage customer → Give Points/Credits and add the points back. With After a time without activity, this also restarts their countdown.