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How cardholders earn points depends on your points mode.

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Rain-Managed

Cardholders earn points automatically on posted card transactions. You do not need to call any endpoints—Rain handles earning, settlement, and minting.

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What Earns Points

  • Posted transactions earn points based on the transaction amount and your configured rates
  • Authorizations and unposted transactions do not earn points
  • Each transaction earns points at most once (idempotency is enforced)

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Calculation

Points earned = Transaction amount (in USD cents) × Earn rate (in bips) ÷ 10,000 The earn rate is the merchant rate if one is configured, otherwise the category rate. See Configuring Rates for details on merchant-specific overrides. Each point equals $0.01 face value, which is different from redemption value and is mostly used for accounting purposes. For example, a $100 dining transaction at 200 bips (2%) earns 200 points ($2.00 value).

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Pre-Mint Lifecycle

Points move through two states before minting: At liquidation, ready points are minted onchain. Both transitions are automatic. You take no action.

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Partner-Managed (Onchain)

For Partner-Managed Onchain programs, you calculate points in your own system.

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How to Calculate Points

Subscribe to transaction.spend.completed webhooks. When a transaction settles, calculate points based on your own rates and rules, then credit them in your ledger. Rain does not mint or maintain cardholder point balances for Partner-Managed Onchain programs. You are the source of truth for balances, and Rain queries you only when a travel flow needs a balance check.

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Partner-Managed (Offchain)

For Partner-Managed Offchain programs, Rain calculates card-spend points from your configured earn rates, stores them in the Rain DB ledger, and finalizes them without submitting an onchain mint. Use POST /issuing/raindrops/mint only for non-card adjustments such as welcome bonuses, referrals, airdrops, or manual credits. See Manual Adjustments below.

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Refunds

For Rain-Managed and Partner-Managed Offchain programs, when a transaction is refunded, Rain creates negative points that net against the user’s next mint batch or DB finalization cycle.
For Rain-Managed programs, points already minted onchain are never clawed back. A net-negative cycle carries the deficit forward to the next mint. Partner-Managed Onchain programs handle reversals in the partner ledger.

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Manual Adjustments

Use POST /issuing/raindrops/mint to award adjustment points outside of card transactions. For example, you might award points for:
  • Referral bonuses
  • Welcome bonuses
  • Airdrops
  • Ad-hoc credits
Each call is idempotent on a (type, reason) key per user. Manual adjustments are capped at 25,000 points ($250 face value) per call and go straight to the ready state. The endpoint accepts userId, amount, type, and an optional reason depending on the adjustment type.
Do not use this endpoint to refund travel redemptions. Use the dedicated travel refund endpoint instead.

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Sandbox Minting Simulation

In sandbox, you can simulate points minting on demand instead of waiting for the scheduled daily liquidation job. The Simulate raindrops minting endpoint advances your Pending points through minting immediately and returns 404 Not Found in production.