Sign-Up Bonus Terms Are Enforced Long After Approval

A welcome bonus reads like a simple exchange: spend a threshold, receive an award. The conditions attached to it operate on a much longer timeline than the offer itself.

Eligibility is checked against the issuer's own records

Most offers exclude applicants who currently hold, or recently held, the same product. The issuer knows this from its own files without any external check.

Some issuers extend the rule across a product family or apply a limit on how many new accounts an applicant has opened anywhere over a period.

These rules are frequently stated in general terms in the offer and applied precisely in practice, which is why applicants are approved and then found ineligible for the bonus.

The spending window is measured from an internal date

Minimum spending requirements run from account opening, not from the day the card arrives or the day the cardholder first uses it.

Transactions count when they post, not when they are made. A purchase made inside the window that settles after it has closed may not be counted.

Excluded transactions are the other common surprise. Cash advances, balance transfers, fees and certain cash-equivalent purchases are typically carved out of the qualifying total.

Clawback provisions survive the award

Program terms generally permit an issuer to reverse a bonus if the qualifying conditions turn out not to have been met, or if the account is closed within a stated period.

Returns are the ordinary case. Refunding purchases that were used to reach the threshold can drop the qualifying total below it after the bonus has already posted.

A reversal on a points account can push the balance negative, which then absorbs future earnings until it is cleared.

Retention and closure interact with the bonus

Closing an account early is the clearest trigger. Many terms specify a minimum period the account must remain open before the award is considered settled.

Downgrading rather than closing can avoid the trigger, though whether it does depends on the specific program terms rather than on a general rule.

Annual fees complicate the timing, since the second-year fee often posts around the point at which a cardholder is deciding whether to keep the account.

Where the terms are actually written

The marketing page states the headline; the offer terms and the program rules state the conditions. They are separate documents and the second governs.

Terms are revised between offers, so an understanding formed from a previous application may not apply to the current one.

Reading the offer terms at the point of application, and keeping a copy, is the only reliable way to know what was agreed when a dispute arises months later.