This program is designed to promote consistent and regular use of Microsoft products like the Xbox Series X, as over time these points will slowly accumulate until eventually they can be redeemed for rewards that are equivalent to a substantial amounts of money, such as newly released games.
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The Microsoft Rewards program isn’t perfect, however, as many Xbox players recently discovered after trying to redeem their accumulated points only to have their Microsoft accounts suspended for no reason. The Reward points work similarly to the in-game currencies that are often exploited in games like GTA Online, and so Microsoft Rewards has various security measures in place to stop people from redeeming thousands of points they have not earned. The affected users were at first told they may have violated the Microsoft Services Agreement in some way, but in fact, the suspensions were due to a technical glitch on the Microsoft Rewards Xbox app. Xbox’s loyalty marketing lead, Daniel Martins, reassured players on Twitter that Xbox was aware of the problem and working to fix it.
A fix for the problem had gone live on June 3, to stop any more Microsoft accounts from being affected, but this did not help the accounts that had already been suspended, and meant some players were left for a weekend unable to access their Microsoft accounts. Most, if not all, of the suspended accounts should now be back online, however, so these Xbox players can get back to earning Reward points.
This likely would have been an alarming situation for some Microsoft Rewards users as the suspension of their Microsoft account would also have meant the loss of all of their accumulated Rewards points. For many regular uses of this service this could have been the equivalent to a large amount of money, as many players will let their points build and build before spending them all on new games. Players have lost access to digital perks and games through account suspensions before, but to lose them to technical bug would be especially disheartening.
No email was sent out to tell these Xbox Rewards users that their accounts were back online, so there is a chance that some affected players still believe themselves to be suspended, but they should be notified soon about the reactivation.
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