Google Opinion Rewards - Expiring Credits

General
1

Some people have seen their Google Play credit balances drop significantly over the past few days. This appears to be related to a mass expiration of Google Opinion Rewards credits. I've recommended the Google Opinion Rewards app to community members in the past, so I thought I'd share with the forum some details about what seems to have happened.

Apparently, Google Rewards earnings were not actually expiring after one year - until recently when Google performed a bulk expiration of credits more than one year old. It sounds like previously there was a bug in the system, preventing Rewards credits from ever expiring. Google fixed that bug and adjusted everyone's balances around beginning of Nov. Unfortunately, there was no notice or forewarning that this was about to occur so, for people like me with long unused credit balances, those balances just disappeared.

Here's the full transcript of my support chat (with names removed to protect the innocent):

2

Thanks for the info. It's peculiar how Google can create montages set to music and gifs from a person's photos, ask a person how their recent visit to the park was, and remind people about upcoming appointments dates, but cannot warn people when their earned money in their Google accounts is soon to be erased. Whatever: "do the right thing" and "don't be evil" as someone once said.

3

Thanks for the heads up. I haven't noticed any drop in my credit balance yet, but even if they do adjust my account, at least I had enough to upgrade to the Deluxe version of RP Samara (ah, the good old days...).

4

Yes! 50%. Of my balance went bye bye. I was wondering what happened. Should be no expiration.

I only have Google opinions because of you anyway. I have done well with it. So thank you HG.

5

Thanks for the warning; I hadn't had credits expire yet, but after I read this, I checked my account to see that it said my credits are expiring tomorrow. I took the opportunity to spend a bunch of the credits, and now it's saying my credits are set to expire 3/2020, so I now have some more time to use up the rest.

6

Not sure if it would have expired, but I just spent over $100 to get my balance to move further than tomorrow. Now I'm good until February.
Got a few movies just to be safe.
Google rewards and samsung tv credit got me over $170. Would hate to not get anything, so now it on movies to watch later.
Thanks for heads up

7

I was confused trying to figure out what some of you are referring to. I couldn't find credit expiry information anywhere. But apparently, I was looking in the wrong place? Because, now, when I pull up Google Play Store app > Payment methods > Google Play balance, the following is displayed:

"Expiring $x.xx promotion Deduction on XX/XX/XXXX "

I could have sworn this information wasn't there before, but maybe I was only looking at the Google Play website, which (as of now) lacks any information about expiring or deducted promotional credits.

Either way, the info appears in the Google Play app and that's exactly what I was asking Google Support for. I'm glad we have a way to know when to consume credits by, to avoid losing them. Still, I'd love for Google to surface this information more clearly, but I also realize it's not in Google's interest to do so. At least the info is available somewhere. Thanks to everyone who steered me in the right direction!