If you sell bundles, you need to know which part of the bundle earns loyalty points, the bundle itself or the products inside it. Getting this wrong either double counts points or awards none at all. This article explains how the Advanced Coupons Loyalty Program treats bundles, and the one behaviour that surprises most store owners.
What you need
- The WooCommerce Product Bundles plugin, installed and active. The Loyalty Program only applies the behaviour below while that plugin is running.
- Loyalty Program 1.9.1 or later, which is when the integration was added.
The bundle earns, the bundled items do not
A bundle in the cart is not one line. It is the bundle itself, plus a line for each product inside it. Without any special handling, the Loyalty Program would count both the bundle and its contents, and the customer would earn points twice for the same purchase.
The integration prevents that. Any line that belongs to a bundle is skipped when points are calculated, in the cart and again on the order. Only the bundle line itself is counted.
So when you think about points on a bundle, think about the bundle product, not the products inside it. Point settings on the individual products inside a bundle do not decide what the customer earns.
How to control whether a bundle earns points
Because the bundle line is the one that counts, you control points from the bundle product itself. Open the bundle product and use the same per-product loyalty setting you would use on any other product. Setting it on the products inside the bundle has no effect on earning.
For the per-product setting itself, see How to Disable Loyalty Points per Product.
One non-earning bundle stops the whole order
This is the behaviour worth knowing before you set it up. If an order contains a bundle that is set not to earn points, the customer earns nothing for that order. Not just nothing for the bundle, nothing at all.
A customer who buys a non-earning bundle together with two products that would normally earn points ends up with zero points for the order. The check runs across the whole order, and a single non-earning bundle is enough to stop it.
If you want a bundle excluded from points without penalising the rest of the order, sell it separately rather than marking it as non-earning, or reconsider whether it needs excluding at all.
Bundle pricing modes
WooCommerce Product Bundles can price a bundle in two ways, and the choice changes how many points the customer earns. Price the bundle on the bundle itself if loyalty points matter to you.
Bundle priced: points work as expected
When the bundle carries its own price, the bundle line holds the value and the customer earns points on it. In the example above, a bundle priced at $120.00 earns 132 points.
Priced individually: points are much lower
When each bundled item is priced individually, the value sits on the bundled item lines instead of the bundle line. Those lines are the ones the integration skips, so there is very little left on the bundle line for points to be calculated from.
The difference is large. A priced-individually bundle with a cart value of $134.00 earned 13 points on a test store. The same three products bought separately, at the same $134.00, earned 147 points.
If your store runs a loyalty program, set a price on the bundle product itself rather than pricing the items individually. Check the points figure on the cart page after you set a bundle up, so you can see what customers will actually earn before you promote it.
Frequently asked questions
Do the products inside a bundle earn points as well?
No. Lines that belong to a bundle are skipped, so the customer earns from the bundle line only. This stops points being counted twice.
I disabled points on a product inside a bundle. Why did nothing change?
Because the bundled lines are skipped either way. Set the option on the bundle product instead.
Why did a customer earn no points at all on an order with several items?
Check whether the order contained a bundle set not to earn points. One of those stops the entire order from earning.
Does this work without the Product Bundles plugin?
No. The behaviour only applies while WooCommerce Product Bundles is active.
Need help?
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