Originally Posted by
bob12403
4.2 Forfeiting Starpoints. Except for SVO Owners to whom the obligations in Section 9 apply, Starpoints earned or otherwise obtained by an SPG Member will forfeit without notice if the SPG Member becomes Inactive, even if the SPG Member has achieved SPG Lifetime Gold or SPG Lifetime Platinum status. An SPG Member is considered "Inactive" if during a 12 month period: (a) the SPG Member has not had an Eligible Stay at an SPG Participating Hotel; (b) the SPG Member has not earned or redeemed any Starpoints, or (c) the SPG Member's account has been cancelled.
You forfeit your Starpoints if you become inactive by not earning or redeeming any Starpoints in a 12 month period. When you play Audience Rewards trivia you earn Starpoints. Therefore, having earned Starpoints through Audience Rewards, your account does not go inactive. And this information confirmed by Starwood Lurker in this thread.
Proactively adding a "Points Expire" date on everyone's account page sure would eliminate a lot of questions/confusion.
My question from the above T&Cs is what is the meaning of "earn"? They go to the trouble in the first part to say if you are declared inactive you will lose points both earned "and otherwise obtained." So there apparently are ways to have points added to your account that Starwood does not consider to be earned. Presumably, in those instances your account life would not be extended by that kind of activity. So what kind of points are "unearned"? I can guess at a couple of them, but the T&Cs don't say.