Loyalty glossary · 1. Program mechanics and currency (40)
Blackout Dates
Blackout dates are specific days or periods when a loyalty programme refuses to accept points for certain rewards, usually flights or hotel stays, even when the same inventory is sold for cash. They are a contractual carve out, not a technical limit, and they cap the value of a points currency without changing its stated earn rate.
Blackout dates are a policy choice, not a technical constraint. An airline can block redemptions on specific days while selling cash tickets on the same flight, which means the restriction exists to protect revenue, not to manage inventory. The programme has decided that your points are worth less exactly when you want to use them.
A programme with 20 blackout days per year removes 5.5 percent of the calendar. Double that to 40 blackout days and the share rises to 11.0 percent. That change is silent, because no member counts the days, and it quietly revalues the entire points balance without a single email.
Co-brand card members feel this first. The card earns points every day, and the marketing says the member can fly whenever they want. Then the airline refuses to accept those points on the dates people actually travel: school holidays, long weekends, the week before Christmas. The cardholder has spent for a year to earn a reward they cannot use on the only dates that matter.
This feeds both accrual and breakage. Accrual rates are set on the assumption that a point has a stable value, but a point blocked on high demand dates is worth less than the earn rate implies. Breakage rises too, because members who cannot redeem give up quietly, and the liability eventually releases back to revenue without the programme improving its offer.
The fix is simple. Publish the full blackout calendar before the earning year begins, and treat any addition to it as a material change to the programme terms. A programme that hides its blackout dates until after a member has committed points is operating a trap, and traps are not loyalty mechanics.