In this article:
What are points?
Points are what your customers earn for doing things you want them to do. They earn by completing activity rules, and they spend on your rewards once they have enough.
The five point states
A customer's points sit in one of a few states, and you will see these names in exports, on the customer profile and in the API.
Points approved: available to spend right now.
Points pending: earned, but still inside an approval period. They cannot be spent yet.
Points spent: the total a customer has already exchanged for rewards.
Points total: approved plus pending.
Points lifetime: approved plus pending plus spent, so everything they have ever earned.
Pending points and the approval period
An activity rule can carry an approval period. When it does, the points a customer earns from it arrive pending and cannot be spent until the period has passed. It is what stops someone buying, spending the points, and returning the order.
Customers can see their pending points in their history, so the wait is visible to them rather than looking like points that never arrived.
How to choose a period, and what happens when you change one, are covered on Make a purchase. The same rules apply wherever an approval period appears.
Approving points early
If you would rather not make a particular customer wait, you can release their points by hand.
Go to Customers and open the customer's profile.
Find the activity in their history.
Click Approve next to it.
The activity moves from pending to approved and the points are spendable immediately.
FAQ
Why did my customer not get points for an activity?
Three things to check first:
Are they actually a member? A guest is not enrolled, so activities do not pay out until they create an account and join. More on customer accounts.
Is there an approval period on the rule? The points may be there but still pending, which looks the same to a customer glancing at their spendable balance.
Have they hit the rule's limit? Most rules can be capped per day, week, month, year or lifetime, and a customer at the cap earns nothing more until it resets.
If none of those explain it, email support@loyaltylion.com and we will take a look.