Here’s the satisfying part of running a loyalty programme: watching customers cash in their hard-earned points for real money off their order. Redemption is the moment all that loyalty pays off — for them, and for you. Think of it like cashing in loyalty stamps for a free coffee. You’ve been collecting them, now it’s time to spend them.
When a customer redeems points, Perkie generates a unique discount coupon and applies it directly to their cart. No copy-pasting codes, no hunting through emails — it just works.
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Why This Matters
Redemption is what makes a points programme feel real to your customers. If earning points is the carrot, redemption is the bite. Without a smooth, obvious redemption experience, customers forget they have points, stop caring about earning them, and your loyalty programme quietly becomes wallpaper.
Getting your redemption settings right also protects your margins. You can control exactly how generous the programme is, cap discounts so they don’t wipe out your profit on a single order, and set minimum thresholds so customers can’t nibble away with tiny $0.50 coupons.
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Configuring Redemption
Head to Tracksies > Perkie > Redemption tab to find all of these settings in one place.
Redemption Rate
This is the engine of your programme — how many points it takes to earn $1 off. The default is 100 points = $1. So a customer with 500 points has $5 to spend.
Lower the number to be more generous (50 points = $1 feels like a better deal). Raise it to be more conservative. There’s no universally right answer — it depends on how fast your customers earn points and what margin you can afford to give back.
Minimum Redemption
This sets a floor on how many points a customer must have before they can redeem anything. The default is 500 points (worth $5 at the default rate). This prevents customers from generating tiny coupon codes for a few cents, which creates clutter and doesn’t feel rewarding to them anyway. A $5 minimum redemption actually makes the reward feel more meaningful.
Maximum Discount
This caps how much of the cart a redemption coupon can cover, expressed as a percentage of the subtotal. The default is 50%. So even if a customer has enough points to cover their entire order, they’ll still pay at least half. This protects your margins and prevents the programme from being gamed on high-value orders. You can raise or lower this cap depending on how comfortable you are with deep discounts.
Coupon Prefix
When a customer redeems points, Perkie generates a unique coupon code like PERKS-SARAH-X7K2. The prefix is the bit at the start — by default PERKS- — so you can immediately identify which coupons came from your loyalty programme. You can change this to match your brand (e.g., REWARDS- or LOYALTY-). Keep it short and memorable.
Coupon Expiry
Redeemed coupons don’t last forever. By default they expire after 30 days. This creates gentle urgency — a customer who generates a coupon has a reason to come back within the month. You can extend this if you’d prefer a more relaxed programme, or shorten it if you want to drive faster return visits.
Refund Expired Points
This checkbox controls what happens when a coupon expires without being used. If it’s ticked, the points that were redeemed for that coupon are quietly returned to the customer’s balance. It’s a goodwill setting — if a customer forgot to use their coupon, they don’t lose their points forever. If it’s unticked, the points are gone when the coupon expires.
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The Customer Experience
Once redemption is configured, here’s exactly what your customers see.
Step by Step
- The customer adds items to their cart and heads to the cart or checkout page.
- A Redeem Points panel appears below the cart summary. It shows:
– Their current points balance
– What that balance is worth in dollars (e.g., “Your 1,200 points are worth $12.00”)
- The panel displays preset redemption buttons: $10, $20, $50, and Redeem All (capped at the Maximum Discount setting).
- The customer clicks one of the buttons — say, $10.
- Perkie instantly generates a unique coupon (e.g.,
PERKS-SARAH-X7K2), deducts the corresponding points from their balance, and applies the coupon to their cart automatically.
- The cart updates to show the discount. The customer sees exactly how much they saved.
- The customer completes checkout as normal. The coupon is applied to their order.
That’s it. No manual entry, no separate coupon step. The whole experience happens right there in the cart.
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Common Questions
Can customers redeem partial amounts — like not using all their points?
Yes. The preset buttons ($10, $20, $50) let customers choose how much they want to redeem. They don’t have to use all their points at once. If they only want $10 off today, that’s fine — their remaining points stay in their balance for next time.
What happens to the coupon if they abandon the cart?
The coupon still exists and is still valid until it expires (or they use it). If a customer generates a coupon and then closes the browser without checking out, the coupon code will work on their next visit — just like any other discount code they might have. Their points have already been deducted, though, so the coupon represents those points until it’s used or expires.
Can redemption coupons stack with other coupons?
By default, WooCommerce allows individual coupon codes to be set as “individual use only,” which prevents stacking. Perkie-generated coupons follow whatever WooCommerce coupon stacking rules you have configured. If you want to prevent stacking with other promotions, you can set your default individual use policy in WooCommerce > Settings > General. Perkie coupons will respect that setting.
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If Something Goes Wrong
The Redeem Points panel isn’t showing up in the cart
First, confirm that the Perkie feature is active — go to Tracksies > Settings > Features and check that Perkie is enabled. Then check the Minimum Redemption setting in Tracksies > Perkie > Redemption tab. If the customer’s balance is below the minimum, the panel will be hidden. Also worth checking: is the customer logged in? Guest sessions don’t have a points balance.
Customer says their points didn’t come back after a coupon expired
Check whether Refund Expired Points is ticked in Tracksies > Perkie > Redemption tab. If the checkbox is off, expired coupon points are not returned. If it’s on and the refund still didn’t happen, check the Coupon Expiry setting — the coupon may not have actually expired yet.
A redemption coupon was applied but then the order was refunded — what happens to the points?
When an order is refunded in WooCommerce, Perkie handles points based on your refund settings in the Earning tab. Redemption coupons on refunded orders are treated the same as any other discount — the coupon itself is marked used in WooCommerce, but whether points are restored to the customer depends on how you’ve configured point behaviour on refunds.
Customer is getting an error when trying to redeem
Check that their balance is above the Minimum Redemption threshold. If it is, try regenerating their points balance from Tracksies > Perkie by triggering a customer sync. If the issue persists, enabling debug logging at Tracksies > Settings > Debug will give you more detail to work with.
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Related Guides
- Points Expiration — how and when earned points expire, plus warning emails
- Earning Points — earn rates, tiers, multipliers, and how customers accumulate points
- The Perks Page — the customer-facing My Account page showing balance, history, and tier progress