Most Australian clinics are better off with a rolling expiry, points lapsing after 12 to 24 months of client inactivity, rather than no expiry at all or a fixed calendar cut-off that can wipe out an active member's balance overnight. Points that never expire are a liability that only grows. Points that expire without warning damage the trust the program was built to create. The right policy sits between the two.
What does a loyalty points expiry policy actually mean?
A loyalty points expiry policy is the rule that decides when unused points stop being redeemable. It answers a question a clinic often has not thought through until a client asks it directly: if points sit unused for a year, do they still count?
Most Australian retail and hospitality loyalty programs use one of three approaches: a fixed date every batch of points shares, a rolling clock tied to a client's last activity, or no expiry policy at all. The choice affects a clinic's books as much as it affects clients.
Why would a clinic set an expiry date on loyalty points at all?
Every unredeemed point is a discount the clinic has already promised. A points balance that never gets used does not disappear, it sits on the books as a future cost with nothing capping how large it can grow. An expiry policy limits that unredeemed liability.
Expiry also gives a program a legitimate, low-pressure reason to re-engage a client who has drifted. A message telling a client their points lapse in 30 days is a prompt to rebook that does not require inventing a fresh discount to justify the contact.
What expiry models do Australian clinics actually use?
Clinics running a points-based loyalty program typically choose from three structures. None is universally right, the fit depends on how the rest of the program is run.
| Model | How it works | Client experience | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fixed calendar expiry | All points earned in a program year lapse on one set date, e.g. 31 December. | Simple to explain, but can feel abrupt if the date arrives without warning. | A clinic running an annual loyalty year with a clear renewal moment. |
| Rolling inactivity expiry | Points lapse a set period, commonly 12 to 24 months, after a client's last visit or points activity. | Feels fairer: an active client's points effectively never expire. | A clinic that wants a policy which only ever affects genuinely lapsed clients. |
| No expiry | Points remain on a client's balance indefinitely. | Most generous from the client's side, no risk of feeling cheated. | A clinic in its first year or two of running a program, before balances grow large enough to matter. |
These are general design patterns, not fixed rules. Check what your own loyalty or booking software actually supports before committing to a policy.
Does Australian law require clinic loyalty points to expire?
No. The Australian Consumer Law's minimum three-year expiry rule applies to gift cards and vouchers a client pays for, not to loyalty points a client earns through spending. There is currently no general law setting a mandatory minimum or maximum expiry period for clinic loyalty points, which is exactly why policies vary so widely from clinic to clinic. Australia's gift card expiry rules covers the purchased-voucher side of this in detail, since the two are governed differently and it is easy to assume one rule covers both.
That gap does not mean anything goes. A points expiry policy that is buried in fine print, changed retroactively, or applied without warning invites the same kind of complaint a hidden gift card term would, even without a specific law naming loyalty points.
How do you introduce a points expiry policy without annoying clients?
- State the policy at sign-up, not after the first complaint. A client who knows the rule from day one rarely objects to it later.
- Give advance warning before points actually lapse, ideally through an in-app or push notification 30 days out, not a line item on an annual statement nobody reads.
- Never apply a stricter new policy retroactively to points a client already earned under the old rules. Grandfather existing balances and start the new clock from the change date.
- If the program also has membership tiers, keep tier status and points balance on separate rules where possible, so a lapsed points balance does not also quietly cost a client their status.
A loyalty program with no expiry policy is not more generous, it is just deferring the decision. Eventually every clinic has to answer the same question: what happens to a point nobody ever redeemed?
Clinic App does not force a default expiry policy onto a clinic's loyalty points. Each clinic sets its own rolling or fixed policy, and the countdown is shown to the client inside their branded app rather than buried in a terms page nobody opens. How many points per dollar should a clinic loyalty program give? covers the other half of the maths, what a point is worth before you decide how long it should last.
Frequently asked questions
Do loyalty points legally have to expire in Australia?
No. The Australian Consumer Law's minimum three-year expiry rule applies to gift cards and vouchers a client pays for, not to loyalty points a client earns through spending. There is currently no general law setting a mandatory minimum or maximum expiry period for clinic loyalty points, which is why policies vary from clinic to clinic.
What is a fair expiry period for clinic loyalty points?
There is no fixed industry standard, but a rolling window of 12 to 24 months of client inactivity is common among Australian clinics and salons. That is long enough that an active client never notices it and short enough to cap how large the unredeemed balance can grow.
What happens to a client's points if their membership lapses or they cancel?
Most clinics let already-earned points remain valid for a short grace period after a membership ends, rather than cancelling them the moment a client leaves, since an abrupt cut-off generates the most complaints. The length of that grace period is a policy decision for the clinic, not something dictated by loyalty software.
Should points expire even if membership tier status does not?
They can run on different clocks. Tier status is often reviewed annually based on spend, while points are a running balance a client can redeem at any time inside the expiry window. Keeping the two separate stops a client losing their status and their points balance in the same policy change.
