Stop Counting Points. Start Measuring Effort.

Why do my loyalty points keep expiring before I can use them?

That's the question I typed into Google last week, after yet another email told me my airline miles were about to vanish. And it's the question I hear from nearly every consumer I talk to. We're drowning in loyalty programs — the average consumer now juggles 19 of them (Bond Loyalty Report 2024) — yet we're more frustrated than ever. Only 48% of Americans say they're 'very satisfied' with their loyalty programs (Bond Loyalty Report 2025). Something is broken.

My thesis is simple: the traditional points-and-rewards model has become a liability. It's not driving loyalty; it's driving irritation. The future belongs to brands that ditch the transactional mindset and focus on reducing customer effort and delivering personal relevance. The data backs me up, and I'm going to show you why.

The Problem with Points

Points programs are everywhere — 77% of tracked brands offer them (Euromonitor). But they're failing us. Over a quarter of UK loyalty points go unused, and 11.9% expire unspent (Retail Gazette). In the US, 49% of consumers say they'd like points to never expire, and 41.1% of UK/Irish shoppers are frustrated by expiring points (Antavo). The result? We feel cheated, not loyal.

Worse, the rewards themselves are often unattractive — 38.9% of UK/Irish shoppers found the rewards on offer unappealing (Retail Gazette). And it takes too long to earn anything meaningful — 49.1% said earning rewards takes too long (Retail Gazette). So we hoard points, they expire, and we resent the brand. That's not loyalty; that's a slow-burning grudge.

The counter-argument, of course, is that points work — they drive repeat purchases, and 85% of consumers say loyalty programs make them more likely to keep buying (Bond 2024). But I'd argue that's a low bar. We're not aiming for 'more likely to buy'; we're aiming for 'can't imagine leaving.' And points alone can't get us there.

Effort Is the Real Currency

In 2010, HBR published 'Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers,' and its findings still resonate. The study of over 75,000 customer interactions found that delighting customers with over-the-top service doesn't build loyalty — what matters is making it easy for them. The Customer Effort Score, which measures how much effort a customer has to expend to get a problem solved, predicts loyalty better than satisfaction or even NPS (HBR).

Think about that. A customer who has to jump through hoops to redeem their points — navigating a clunky app, waiting for customer service, watching points expire — is being asked to exert effort. And effort breeds disloyalty. The fix isn't more points; it's removing friction. Make it effortless to earn, redeem, and feel valued.

That's why I'm a fan of coalition programs like Nectar, which lets members earn and redeem across multiple partners. Nectar saw double-digit growth because it made redemption easier and more frequent — points land in balances within two weeks, and redemptions are shifting to smaller, more frequent ones (Nectar360). Lower effort, higher engagement.

Personalization Beats Points

So what should replace the points treadmill? Personalization. The data is overwhelming: 73% of shoppers want personalized rewards, but only 45% of brands offer them (Euromonitor). And when brands do get it right, the payoff is huge. HBR's 'The New Science of Customer Emotions' showed that a bank that designed a credit card to inspire emotional connection saw usage jump 70% and new account growth rise 40% (HBR). Emotional connection, not discounts, drives loyalty.

Gartner predicts that by 2030, one in five loyalty programs will offer only fully personalized perks (Gartner via CX Dive). The Home Depot's Pro Xtra program is a great example — it combines tiers with behavior-based, personalized discounts (Gartner via CX Dive). That's the future: not a universal list of benefits, but a program that adapts to me.

And personalization extends to how we interact. 57% of US consumers prefer to engage via a mobile app (Antavo). Yet Gartner found that 28% of consumers deleted a brand app after it asked to share data (Gartner via CX Dive). The lesson? Personalization must be built on trust, not surveillance. Make the value exchange obvious and respectful.

What You Should Do Today

Stop trying to delight me with champagne. Start by removing the effort from my experience. Audit your program: Are points expiring? Are rewards attainable? Can I redeem in under a minute? If not, you're burning loyalty, not building it.

Second, invest in personalization. Use your data to tailor offers to individual preferences, not demographics. And consider a paid membership model — Amazon Prime members spend 149% more than non-members (Rivo), and 93% renew after Year 1 (Rivo). But remember, Prime works because it's effortless and valuable, not because it has points.

Finally, measure what matters. Forget NPS as the holy grail. Track customer effort, redemption rates, and repeat purchase rates. Smile.io defines redemption rate as points redeemed divided by points earned in the last 30 days (Smile.io). If that number is low, your program is failing.

The single most important thing to remember: Loyalty is not a reward for spending; it's a reward for making life easier. Reduce effort, personalize the experience, and the points will take care of themselves.

Sources

• Bond Loyalty Report 2024 - https://bondbl.com/news/the-bond-loyalty-report-celebrates-those-succeeding-in-loyalty/
• Bond Loyalty Report 2025 - https://bondbl.com/news/the-bond-loyalty-report-released-in-collaboration-with-visa/
• Antavo US Loyalty Trends 2025 - https://antavo.com/blog/us-loyalty-trends/
• Retail Gazette (Antavo 2026) - https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2026/02/more-than-a-quarter-of-loyalty-points-go-unspent-says-new-research/
• HBR: Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers - https://hbr.org/2010/07/stop-trying-to-delight-your-customers
• Gartner via CX Dive: personalized perks - https://www.customerexperiencedive.com/news/future-loyalty-personalized-not-universal/817124/