What Happens To Credit Card Rewards After You Return a Purchase?

Almost all major credit card issuers and merchants allow their customers to return a purchase within a specific time period, especially when the purchase has been made online. Credit Card returns & refund policies might be different for every card issuer and they must be checked before you purchase a product that you are not sure about. Some card issuers even initiate refunds from their end when the merchant doesn’t agree to the same, but this is not the case every time. Sometimes it might be tricky to get a refund on your credit card. Also, you might have wondered whether the reward points for a particular transaction are also returned after a refund or remain in your account?

With almost all the credit cards issued nowadays, cardholders are offered some types of reward points on all purchases. As soon as you make a transaction, your card issuer initiates the process of crediting your earned rewards points into your account. And in a very short time, you can see the Reward Points balance in your account.

What Happens To Reward Points After a Return or Refund?

The Reward Points on a credit card are offered for the purchases a cardholder makes using it. The card issuer’s sole purpose behind offering reward points is to attract more and more customers and make them spend more using credit cards. So, it is very obvious that if you ask for a refund from your card issuer or you return a purchase you have made using your card, the card issuer won’t provide you with the reward points for free. If you take your amount bank, the card issuer will also take the rewards back.

Therefore, before you return a purchase or get refund for any transaction made using your credit card, you must be aware of the fact that the Reward Points associated with that particular transaction will also be returned. Now, there can be different situations like the Reward Points are already credited to your account, or the points might have been already redeemed. To understand what happens to reward points in all the types of different cases, go through the below-mentioned information carefully:

Case 1: When The Reward Points Are Not Yet Credited

If you have requested a refund for a particular transaction for which Reward Points haven’t been credited to your account, the card issuer will stop the rewards accruing process for that specific transaction. Therefore, the reward points for a canceled/refunded transaction will never be credited to your account in such a case.

Case 2: When The Reward Points Have Been Credited

If the Reward Points have already been credited for a purchase that you are going to return now, the Reward Points will also be returned once you get the refund. So, if you are going to redeem your reward points, make sure that you don’t redeem the ones that were earned on a transaction whose return period is not over yet.

Case 3: When The Points Have Been Credited & You Have Already Redeemed Them

This is something that many people might be wondering after reading the above cases what if the reward points are already redeemed before the refund. In such a case, your reward points balance will become negative and these points will be adjusted whenever you earn Rewards on a transaction after that.

For example, if you have purchased a product with a return period of 30 days. In a few days, you receive 100 Reward Points for this purchase and now you decide of redeeming your points as you have earned a good number so far. But, after using that product for 25 days, you decide to return it but you have already redeemed reward points associated with this purchase. So, once you return the purchase, your reward point balance will be -100. Now, suppose you make a purchase for which you are supposed to earn 150 Reward Points. But, now your credit card balance will be only 50 points as the other 100 points will be adjusted for the previous product that you have returned.

Things To Be Kept In Mind:

The following are a few things acredit cardhlder needs to keep in mind in terms of return & refund with a credit card:

You should try not to redeem the Reward Points earned with a particular purchase until the return period of that particular item is over. Though, it will have no such drawbacks, but your Reward Points balance will go negative.

The return and refund policy can be different for different card issuers, and it is always a good idea to be aware of it from the very beginning of your journey with a particular credit card.

Bottom Line

Now, we hope it is very clear to you that when you return a purchase or ask a refund from your card issuer, the Reward Points associated woth it are also returned. As a responsible credit card user, you should keep a track of your Reward Points and keep checking the rewards balance time to time. If you are requesting a refund from your card issuer, you shouldn’t be shocked hwne the Reward Points are deducted from your account. If you still have any doubts regarding this topic, you can freely ask us in the comment section below.