Tier Boost

Tier Boost lets you temporarily elevate a member's loyalty tier to a promotional tier for a defined period. During the boost window, members earn points and access benefits at the higher (applicable) tier, without needing to accumulate their way there through points.

Tier Boost is a promotional status layer on top of the existing tier system. It never changes or diminishes a member's earned status.

Key Concepts

Three tier states are used throughout this article:

• Operative tier: The member's earned (permanent) tier. Always displayed as the member's primary tier in the dashboard. Gifting never changes this value.
• Gifted tier: The temporary promotional tier applied for the duration of a boost. Shown alongside the operative tier on the guest timeline when active.
• Effective tier: The tier used to calculate earning rates, redemption values, and perk eligibility. Always the higher of the operative and gifted tiers. Computed on the fly; never stored as a persistent member attribute. The effective tier also the member's earned tier during their first year. However, after the membership reset, it resets to the base tier.

Even when Membership Tier Boost is disabled, both Operative Tier and Effective Tier are shown. In this case, the Operative Tier will always be greater than or equal to the Effective Tier. The member sees the Operative Tier, and earnings are also calculated based on the Operative Tier.

When Membership Tier Boost is enabled, an additional Gifted Tier is added. The Applicable Tier is then calculated to determine the member's earnings, using the higher of the Operative Tier and Gifted Tier: Applicable Tier = max(Operative Tier, Gifted Tier). See How Applicable Tier Calculation Works for details.

Prerequisites

Your PAR representative configures the following program-level settings at the time of enablement:

• Minimum and maximum gift duration: The allowed range of days when creating a gift (default: 1–365 days). You cannot issue a gift outside this range.
• Gift Extends Beyond Membership Reset: Whether active gifts are cancelled when a membership tier reset occurs, or allowed to continue until their natural expiry.

To manually gift a tier, force-expire a gift, or submit a bulk upload, you need the Gift & Force Redeem permission in the Punchh dashboard.

How Applicable Tier Calculation Works

Whenever a tier-related event occurs, the system recalculates the member's applicable tier immediately:
Applicable Tier = max(Operative Tier, Gifted Tier)

The system recalculates the applicable tier to apply to the guest when any of these events occur:

• A transaction completing (points earned)
• A tier gift being applied
• A tier gift expiring naturally
• A tier gift being force-expired by an admin
• A membership tier reset occurring
• Tier Boost being disabled at the program level while a gift is still active

While a gift is active:

• We show operative, effective, and gifted tier.
• Earning rates and redemption values follow the effective (higher) tier.
• Points earned still count toward the member's operative tier progression as normal.

When a gift expires or is revoked:

• The effective tier recalculates immediately to the operative tier.
• If the member's operative tier caught up to or exceeded the gifted tier before expiry, there is no change; they keep their earned status.
• If they have not caught up, their benefits return to the operative tier at the moment of expiry or revocation.

Guardrails

The following rules apply to every gifting method:

• You cannot gift a tier equal to or lower than the member's current effective tier. The system blocks this on all paths.
• Only one active gift is allowed per member at a time. If you apply a new gift:
  • If the new tier is lower than or equal to the active gift's tier, the existing gift continues unchanged.
  • If the new tier is higher than the active gift's tier, the existing gift is immediately revoked and replaced by the new gift.
• Every gift requires a mandatory expiry. Open-ended gifts are not supported.
• Gift duration must fall within your program's configured minimum and maximum range.
• A reason is required for every gift.

Gifting a Tier

You can gift a promotional tier to members in three ways within the Punchh Platform.

Option 1: Gift a Tier from the Guest Timeline

To gift a tier to a single member, follow these steps from the member's guest profile.

Permission required: Gift & Force Redeem

1. Open the member's guest profile.
2. Open the message/gift section on the guest timeline.
3. From the gift type selector, choose Membership Tier.
4. Select the tier you want to gift from the Membership Tier dropdown.
5. In the Duration (days) field, enter the number of days for the gift. The value must fall within your program's configured range.
6. Enter a reason for the gift.
7. Click Sumbit.

The gifted tier is applied immediately. An event card appears on the guest timeline showing the tier gifted, duration, expiry date, the admin who applied the gift, and the reason.

Option 2: Gift a Tier via Bulk CSV Upload

To gift a tier to multiple members at once, upload a CSV file from the Punchh dashboard.

Permission required: Gift & Force Redeem

1. Go to All Guest Profiles > Gifted Tiers.
2. Select Import.
3. Prepare a CSV file with the following columns:

Column	Type	Description
user_id	string	The member's ID
tier_id	string	The ID of the tier to gift
validity_in_days	integer	Gift duration in days (must be within your program's configured range)
reason	string	Reason for the gift

4. Upload the CSV file directly, or provide an S3 URL pointing to the file.
5. Enter a name for the upload job, then submit.

The job runs in the background. You do not need to stay on the page. Track its progress from the bulk operations index page. When processing completes:

• You receive an email with a results summary.
• The summary includes total rows, successfully gifted, skipped, and failed counts.
• A downloadable error report lists every skipped or failed row with the member ID and reason.

Common reasons a row is skipped or failed:

• The gifted tier is not higher than the member's operative tier.
• The member already has an active higher-tier gift (skipped).
• The member ID was not found.
• The duration is outside the program's allowed range.
• The reason field is blank.

Option 3: Gift a Tier through a Challenge Campaign

To gift a tier automatically when members complete a challenge, add it as a reward in the Challenge Campaign builder.

Permission required: Challenge campaign admin permissions

1. Open the Challenge Campaign builder.
2. In the reward configuration, select Membership Tier as the gift type.
3. Select the tier to gift from the Tier dropdown.
4. Set the gift duration in the Duration (days) field. The value must be within your program's configured range.
5. Save and activate the campaign.

When a member completes the challenge:

• The gifted tier is applied immediately. The expiry equals the completion time plus the configured duration.
• If the selected tier is equal to or lower than the member's current effective tier at completion time, no gift is created.
• If the member already has an active gift and the new tier is higher, the existing gift is immediately revoked and replaced by the new gift.

Viewing Tier Boost Status on the Guest Timeline

When a member has an active gifted tier, the left panel of their guest timeline within their profile displays both their Effective Tier and Operative Tier as separate labeled fields. When no gift is active, only the operative tier is shown.

Every gifting and revocation event appears as a timeline event card showing:

• Event type and source (Manual, Bulk CSV, or Challenge Campaign)
• Tier gifted
• Gift duration and expiry date
• Who applied the gift (admin name, system, or campaign)
• Timestamp (in your configured dashboard timezone)
• Reason

When an admin revokes a gift, the event card is updated with a "Tier Gift Revoked" label, the name of the admin who revoked it, the revocation timestamp, and the reason.

Force Expiring an Active Tier Gift

You can end a member's active tier gift before its scheduled expiry date directly from the dashboard.

Permission required: Gift & Force Redeem

1. Open the member's guest profile.
2. Click Force Redemption.
3. From the dropdown, select Expire Active Gifted Membership Tier.
   • This option is only visible when the member has an active gift.
   • A hint displays the member's current gifted tier for reference.
4. Enter a reason for the revocation.
5. Confirm the action.

The member's effective tier recalculates immediately to their operative tier. A revocation event is logged on the guest timeline.

Related Documentation

• Membership Tiers
• Membership Tier Reset Strategies
• Challenge Campaigns