How do loyalty balance expiry, pausing and deleting work?

Optional balance expiry and its warning email, pausing and resuming the scheme, deleting it, and what a plan change does.

Part of How do I set up a loyalty scheme?. This part covers the scheme's life: balance expiry, pausing or deleting the scheme, and what moving to a plan without loyalty does.

Balance expiry (off by default)

Turn on Balance expiry to let quiet balances lapse: pick Months before expiry (1–60, default 12). Members get one warning email before anything lapses, and any visit, earn or redemption resets their clock. The warning email itself — its on/off switch (on by default) and Warn members this many days before (7–90, default 30) — is managed in Settings → Guest notifications, in the Loyalty section (the scheme set-up links there). Turn the warning off and balances still expire, members just aren't warned first. When a balance does expire, the whole balance lapses at once — it doesn't drain gradually — so the warning email matters; the wording is editable in Settings → Email templates ("Points expiry warning").

Pause or delete

Both live in Settings → Loyalty, in the Pause or delete the scheme section (shown to anyone who can edit the scheme). Pause scheme is free and instant — members keep their balances, but no one can earn or redeem until you Resume scheme (a paused scheme also shows a banner at the top of the Loyalty page, with Resume in Settings). Delete the loyalty scheme is heavily guarded: you type the scheme name exactly, give a reason and confirm your password — members' stamps, points and rewards die with the scheme, members are emailed that it has closed, and it cannot be undone. For about 60 days afterwards, former members who open their guest portal see a small "The loyalty scheme has closed" note in place of their card, so the disappearance never looks like a glitch.

Moving to a plan without loyalty freezes the scheme rather than ending it — unless you own the standalone Loyalty product, which keeps your scheme running through any plan change (the product grant, not the plan, is what carries it). Where the scheme does freeze: members keep their balances (nothing lapses while it's frozen), their guest portal tells them the scheme is paused and their balance is safe, and saved wallet cards stop advertising rewards and show a Programme paused note instead. You'll see a Loyalty paused (plan change) entry in your Activity log and notification bell when the freeze lands — and Loyalty resumed (plan change) when it lifts. (A pause you choose in Settings → Loyalty is a different, separately-logged thing: Loyalty scheme paused.) Upgrade back to Pro or Complete (or add the Loyalty product) and everything resumes exactly where it left off — balances, rewards and wallet cards included.

Related: How do I set up a loyalty scheme? · How do loyalty members earn stamps and points? · How do members join and manage their card?