What Happens To Loyalty Points When You Die?

If you spend hours scouring coupon websites for bargains and loyalty points, have you given a thought to what happens to them when you die?

Every year, British consumers amass a massive £5.7 billion in loyalty rewards.

Most of the money flows back to the company offering the reward as 75% of consumers have no idea of how much their discount is worth .

Only 14% of consumers spend their rewards – leaving the rest leaving their cashbacks unclaimed.

And 93% of consumers fail to pass on their rewards when they die, losing their hard-earned bonuses, says a survey by cashback shopping site TopCashback.

Transferring rewards

The survey goes on to explain that nine out of 10 people do not know what to do with their loyalty payments, while 47% have not considered including their cash backs in their wills and 43% did not know they could transfer their rewards to others.

As a result, only 23% of consumers have passed on details of their accounts and passwords to family or loved ones, while 60% have told no one about their cashbacks.

Only 5% have lodged their passwords with a lawyer and 2% have included their loyalty bonus details in a will.

“Loyalty programs can be incredibly rewarding and making the most of the benefits offered by companies, ensuring you get more for your money, is increasingly important in the current economic climate,” said Topcashback director Adam Bullock.

Loyalty bonus transfers

“While we would always encourage consumers to redeem their loyalty for themselves, people do like to save it up and therefore we also want to encourage consumers to have a plan in place to ensure their loyalty is not lost if they were to pass away.

“The first step is to leave the usernames and passwords of your loyalty schemes with a loved one or include them in your will. By doing this, people can at least be aware of the accounts you hold and the loyalty that is left behind allowing them to make a decision on what happens to the remaining loyalty.”

Not every scheme allows loyalty bonus transfers.

Nectar, Tesco Clubcard and Avios allow points transfers on death. Some flight reward schemes and the IKEA family card do not.

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