Customers not earning loyalty points
A checklist for when customers aren't earning points: rule mismatches, unmet limits, the loyalty timeline, and a deleted collection pausing an earning rule.
If customers aren’t earning points, the issue is usually that the action they took doesn’t match your Ways to earn rules (or the rule has a limit/requirement that wasn’t met). Use this checklist to quickly find what’s missing.
Start with the customer's timeline
Before checking rules one by one, open Loyalty Program → Manage Customers, open the customer, and look at the Timeline under the Not Awarded tab. Roadmap logs the exact reason an order or review didn't earn, for example "All items in this order were ineligible for points based on your earning rule filters". In most cases the timeline names the cause for you. See Understanding a customer's loyalty timeline.
Quick checklist
Confirm a matching earning rule exists
Make sure the trigger actually happened
Some earning actions only award points after a specific event occurs (for example, a review being approved and published). Confirm the customer completed the full requirement.
Step 1: Verify your “Ways to earn” setup
Open Loyalty Program → Points. On the Loyalty Points screen, your earning actions appear under Ways to earn.
To change a rule, click Edit next to it.
To create a new rule, click Add way to earn.
Common earning rules you might see include Account Signup, Celebrate a Birthday, Place an order, Customer Tag, and Leave a review.
Step 2: Match the customer’s action to the right earning rule
Place an order: points didn’t show up
Check the Place an order rule in Ways to earn.
Confirm the customer actually placed an order (not just added items to cart).
In Ways to earn, click Edit next to Place an order and verify the points rate shown under the rule (for example: “1 Point for every 1 AUD spent (shipping excluded)”).
If your rule excludes shipping (as shown in the rule description), customers may earn fewer points than expected when they compare against the checkout total.
Account Signup: points weren’t awarded
Check that Account Signup exists in Ways to earn and that it’s configured to award points (the rule description shows the amount, for example “50 Points awarded on signup”).
If the customer checked out as a guest, they may not have completed an account signup event.
If you changed the signup rule after customers already signed up, earlier signups won’t retroactively earn points.
Celebrate a Birthday: points didn’t trigger
Birthday points depend on the customer having a birthday on file and the birthday date being reached.
In Ways to earn, click Edit next to Celebrate a Birthday and check the rule’s limit (the list may show a limit like “Limit of 1 per year”).
If the customer already earned birthday points within the limit window, they won’t receive them again until they’re eligible.
If you’re testing, make sure your test customer profile has a birthday set and that your expectation matches the rule’s limit timing.
Leave a review: points didn’t trigger
In Roadmap, the Leave a review earning rule is awarded when the review is approved and published (this is shown in the rule description).
Confirm the customer actually submitted a review.
Confirm the customer has a loyalty program
Confirm the review has been published (unapproved reviews won’t earn points yet).
Check the rule amount by clicking Edit next to Leave a review.
Customer Tag: points didn’t trigger
The Customer Tag earning rule awards points when a specific tag is applied to the customer (the rule description shows the tag name and whether it’s repeatable).
In Ways to earn, locate Customer Tag and confirm the tag name shown in the rule description matches (case-sensitive) what you’re applying (for example:
pouch-returned).Click Edit to confirm whether the rule is repeatable or intended as a one-time award.
If the wrong tag is applied (or applied to the wrong customer), the points won’t award—even if everything else looks correct.
Step 3: Check the customer’s points in “Manage Customers”
If the earning rules look correct but the customer claims they didn’t earn points, confirm what Roadmap recorded for that customer:
Open Manage Customers
Go to Loyalty Program → Manage Customers.
Find the customer
Search for the customer and open their record.
Verify points and recent activity
Confirm the customer’s current points balance and check whether the expected points were added after the qualifying action. If the points are present in their loyalty profile but the customer can’t see them on your storefront, they may of undertaken the recent action under a different email address.
A deleted collection paused an earning rule
The Place an order rule's product eligibility can be scoped to collections (only a collection earns, or everything except a collection earns). If that collection is later deleted in Shopify, the rule is left pointing at nothing. Roadmap detects this and steps in:
An alert appears on the Loyalty Program dashboard: A 'Ways to earn' rule is linked to a deleted collection.
The affected rule is set to Draft, so customers will not earn points on eligible orders until it's fixed.
To fix it:
Click Fix this rule in the alert. (If you dismissed it, open Points → Ways to earn and edit the affected rule; it's the one sitting in Draft.)
In Product eligibility, reselect a current collection, or switch to All products earn points.
Set the rule's Status back to Active, then Save.
Once fixed, reach out to Roadmap support and we'll backdate the missing points for eligible orders placed while the rule was paused.
When to contact support
If none of the checks above explain the issue, collect these details before clicking Contact Support (on the Loyalty Program page):
Which earning action you expected (for example Place an order or Leave a review)
A screenshot of the relevant rule from Points → Ways to earn (including the rule description)
The customer email (or Shopify customer name) and the order number / review details / tag applied
What you see in Manage Customers for that customer
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