What Happens to Points When You Close a Credit Card

What each issuer says, in one table

The table lists the closure wording that could be read on October 23, 2026, with the page it came from. A blank is stated as a blank: where a page was unreachable or silent, the cell says so rather than filling in a rule from memory. Closing a card is a credit decision, and nothing here is a recommendation to keep or cancel one.

The question that decides it: is the points account the same thing as the card?

Everything below turns on one structural question. If the points sit in an account that is separate from any single card, closing a card may not touch them. If they sit inside the card account, closing it removes them unless they move first.

Amex is the clearest case, because its terms describe the structure. Each product enrolled in the program is linked to a Rewards Account, and when you open a new product a new Rewards Account is created and linked to it. If you have several products with separate Rewards Accounts you may link some or all of them to the same account, after which points earned on each are consolidated into a single balance. You do that online in the Amex app under Manage Connections, or by calling the number on the back of the card. So the Amex rule about losing everything on closure applies to the last linked product, not to each card in a household of cards.

Chase is closer to card-bound. Its guidance on combining points says that if you are closing a Chase card you can move the points to another eligible Chase card you have that remains open, so you do not lose them. The existence of that sentence tells you the points are tied to the card that earned them until you move them.

Bilt is the opposite case. Its terms talk about a Membership Account and an Inactive Account, defined by whether there has been rent or mortgage activity, a qualifying purchase on a co-brand card, a redemption or a promotional action in 18 months. Points are lost when the Account is closed or becomes inactive for listed reasons, not because a card closed. The terms read do not say what happens to the Account when a Bilt card is closed, so that is a question for Bilt before acting.

Capital One describes miles as tied to the account being open and in good standing. Citi's pages do not describe the structure at all, which is why its row is the shortest.

American Express: the full closure language

The Membership Rewards terms (last updated November 2026) have a section titled Lose Points. The relevant clauses are short, and each one changes the answer.

First, if Amex cancels any of your products for any reason, including your death, insolvency or bankruptcy, you lose all points in your Rewards Account. Three carve-outs follow: the executor of your estate or personal representative may be able to make a one-time redemption upon death depending on your product; if Amex cancels a card account because of inactivity you have 90 days to use the points before losing them; and you will not lose points if Amex cancels a product by accident.

Second, when you cancel or unenroll a product, what happens depends on whether you keep another product linked. If you cancel or unenroll your last linked product you immediately lose all points. If the last linked product is a corporate card you may be able to redeem for up to 30 days. The wording that matters is last linked: a second product linked to the same Rewards Account keeps the balance in place.

Third, the terms separate closing from misuse. If Amex finds fraud, abuse or gaming it may suspend your ability to use points, remove points even to a negative balance, or cancel your products and forfeit the points immediately. That clause is outside the normal decision of closing a card, but it is why a balance built through manufactured spend is not safe in any scenario. Points taken by a stranger who got into the account are a different case, covered in the security and liability clauses for stolen miles.

Fourth, the terms say you generally cannot use points, and Amex may cancel your Rewards Account, if your product is in restricted status, cancelled or past due. And there is a structural line that is easy to skip: points do not belong to you and are not your property. You cannot transfer them to someone else's Rewards Account, sell them, or pass them on in a legal action such as a divorce, an inheritance or a bankruptcy.

A last Amex detail is easy to miss because it concerns what survives. The terms limit redemption options if only a legacy card is linked to the Rewards Account. If you close a current product and leave only a legacy product linked, Pay with Points at third-party brands and some other options may disappear while Amex Travel stays. That does not delete points, but it changes what you can do with them, so check which product remains linked.

Chase: what the education pages say, and what to look up in your agreement

Chase's Ultimate Rewards page on expiry is direct: points do not expire as long as you keep your card account open, and if you close your card account before redeeming or transferring your rewards you will no longer have those points. It adds that if the account is closed for missed payments, program misuse or other reasons detailed in your user agreement, you forfeit the points. The agreement for your specific card is the governing document, and it was not fetched for this guide.

Chase's household guide describes the escape route. Members of the same household can combine Ultimate Rewards points, but only with one person, and they must share your address. You can also combine points between your own Chase credit cards. There are no minimums or fees and you do not lose points when you combine. The page warns that a combine cannot be undone, so be sure you want to combine rewards before moving them.

Two Chase consequences follow from the wording. First, the target card has to remain open, and the page says eligible: a card that does not earn Ultimate Rewards points is not a safe landing place. Second, a combine is a one-way move between accounts, which is the same logic as a partner transfer. If you move points to a card you later close, the same rule applies to them there. The pooling and sharing guide covers who can receive points and which moves are final.

Chase also says that once points are transferred to a travel partner the transfer is final. A balance that has already left Chase is no longer a Chase balance, and its rules are the partner's. That is the subject of a section further down.

Capital One and Bilt: short rules with long consequences

Capital One's guide to using miles answers the closure question in one sentence inside its expiry answer. Miles do not expire as long as your account is open and in good standing. You could lose unredeemed miles if you close your account or your account is no longer active or in good standing, for example if it is suspended, restricted, delinquent or in default. It does not name a grace period, and none is claimed here. The same page says transfers to partners cannot be moved back to Capital One.

Bilt's Rewards Terms and Conditions give the most structure of any issuer read here. Points do not expire as long as the Account is open and active. You immediately lose all points if the Account becomes inactive or is closed for listed reasons: failing to comply with the agreement, bankruptcy, fraud, or misuse such as unauthorized buying or selling of points, moving points to an ineligible third party, or opening accounts repeatedly to generate points. Separately, upon cancellation of your Account for any reason you lose all points immediately, regardless of when or how they were acquired, and Bilt will not reinstate lost points unless it decides there was an error.

The inactivity clock is the other half. An Inactive Account is one with no activity for 18 months, and activity means a rent payment or mortgage payment made through the Account, a qualifying purchase on a co-brand credit card, any redemption made using Bilt Points, or participation in a promotional sweepstakes. The practical reading is that a redemption resets the clock. That is Bilt's own definition, not an inference, and it is a different shape from the Amex and Chase rules.

Bilt's transfer terms add a final point: transfers are not reversible and the points are no longer Bilt points once sent, and moving points to a partner account that does not belong to you is a violation that may result in account closure and forfeiture.

Citi ThankYou: what is and is not known

Citi's Strata Premier card page, read on October 23, 2026, states that there is no expiration on points earned. It does not mention what happens on closure, and it contains no link to the ThankYou terms. The thankyou.com terms document returned a server error when requested, so no Citi closure clause is quoted.

That leaves a question rather than an answer: whether ThankYou points survive the closing of the card that earned them depends on a document this guide could not read. The sensible way to ask is to put the question to Citi in writing for your own account, name the card, and ask whether a grace period exists and whether points can be consolidated with another ThankYou-earning card. Nothing here predicts the reply.

What Citi does print on the card page is the list of ways to use the points, and that list is the only part of its wording that can be quoted before a closure. It names Citi Travel for flights, hotels, car rentals and experiences, transfers to American Airlines, JetBlue, Virgin Atlantic, Cathay, EVA Air, Choice Hotels and The Leading Hotels of the World plus others with a 1,000 point minimum, shopping with points at merchants such as Amazon, PayPal and CVS, and gift cards and cash back at thankyou.com. Amazon's own Citi page prints the checkout rate as 1,000 points for $8. Whether any of those stays open after the card does is the unread clause, so the order of operations is the same as elsewhere: use or move the points while the card is open.

Points already sent to a partner are a different balance

Every issuer read here says transfers to partners are final. Amex says once you transfer points the transfer cannot be reversed and the partner program's terms apply. Chase says transfers to travel partners are final. Capital One and Bilt say the same. So a balance that has already been moved to an airline or hotel is no longer exposed to the issuer's closure rule.

It is exposed to the partner's rules instead. Airline and hotel programs have their own expiry, inactivity and account-closure clauses. The expiry guide and the airline and hotel expiry guide cover those clocks. A booking made with transferred points remains in the partner's system, but an award that is cancelled and redeposited returns miles to the partner account, not to the bank.

One consequence deserves a sentence. A balance sent to a partner without a booking is not safer than a balance at the bank in most ways, and is often less flexible, because it cannot come back. The site's rule stands: find the booking first, transfer last. The how to transfer guide sets out the order of operations, and the when not to transfer guide lists the stop signals.

A before-closing worksheet that stays neutral

None of the steps below says to close a card. They exist so that, whatever you decide, the points are not an accident. Work through them in order and write the answer next to each.

• Name the points account. For Amex, list every product linked to the Rewards Account in the app under Manage Connections. For Chase, list every card that earns Ultimate Rewards. For Capital One, note the card that holds the miles. For Bilt, note whether the Account is separate from the card.
• Identify whether another product will stay linked. If the card you plan to close is not the last one, the Amex clause about losing points on cancelling the last linked product does not apply, but check that the remaining product keeps the redemption options you use.
• Read the printed rate for any dollar redemption. Chase's page prices cash back and gift cards at 1 cent a point; Amazon prints $0.008 or $0.007 per point depending on the bank. The Amazon and gift card guide has the table.
• Check for items that live inside the closing account: digital gift cards in the Amex wallet (the terms warn that closing all of the products on the Rewards Account you redeemed from ends your access to the wallet, and tell you to keep the details beforehand), pending statement credits, and bookings paid for with points where a refund would be credited to the card.
• Decide the destination for any remaining balance: another open card in the same program, a partner transfer for a booking you have confirmed, or a dollar redemption. Transfers are irreversible; a combine is irreversible.
• Write the dates. Amex gives 90 days only in the inactivity case and up to 30 days for a last corporate card. No other issuer read states a grace period.

The exits Amex prints, with their minimums, before you cancel the last product

Amex is the only issuer here whose terms list each way of using points in enough detail to compare, so it is the useful case for a wind-down. Each exit below has a printed minimum or condition, and each is final once taken. None says anything about which is best for you; they only mark which are still open when a closure date approaches.

The common thread is that every exit needs the product to be in good standing at the moment of redemption. The terms say you generally cannot use points, and Amex may cancel your Rewards Account, if your product is restricted, cancelled or past due. Waiting until the day a card is cancelled is therefore the worst time to start, because a cancelled product is exactly the state in which points cannot be used.

The last statement: returns, ineligible purchases and late payment

Closing a card does not freeze the arithmetic of what it earned. Amex's terms contain three clauses that keep running through the final statements, and each can change a balance after you thought it was settled.

First, returns: when you return a purchase made on the enrolled product, the statement credit causes a corresponding deduction of the points you earned from your Rewards Account. If the account does not have enough points to cover the reversal, the balance can go negative, and the terms say any points you get later are applied first to reduce the negative balance and that you cannot use points until it is positive again. Second, ineligible purchases: if Amex determines points were awarded on an ineligible purchase, it may remove them even if that produces a negative balance. Third, payment: you earn points on eligible purchases only if Amex receives timely payment of at least the minimum due. If you miss it, the points for that billing period do not post; they can be recovered later, but only after the amounts due are paid, on request, for a $35 fee per billing period per card account, within 12 months.

The practical reading for a closing: finish returns before the last redemption, pay the final statement on time, and keep a positive balance in mind, because a negative one blocks the exits in the table. Points from the last purchases also have to post before the account closes, and the guide to credit card points posting times shows how long each issuer's document says that takes. How the same return clause reads at Chase and Bilt, and what a deficit costs to climb out of, is set out in what Amex, Chase and Bilt do to points on a returned purchase.

Checklist

• List which products or cards share the points account before closing any of them.
• Copy the issuer's closure clause into your notes with the date you read it.
• Complete returns and pay the final statement before the last redemption.
• Move, redeem or transfer only after the destination is confirmed; combines and transfers cannot be undone.
• Save the details of, or redeem, digital gift cards before closing the last product on the Rewards Account you redeemed from.
• Ask the issuer in writing about any grace period; only Amex states two narrow ones.