I think I'm safe on this one but I can't seem to find an exact answer.

If I use my RR points to book a flight for somebody else, and then the other person checks in for the flight but never actually boards, will the points just automatically come back to my account once the flight leaves?

Basically I have a friend who is able to fly standby but just in case they aren't able to get a flight using standby I'd like to get them an award ticket on WN. If they get on using their standby ticket then the award ticket I get them won't be used, but I don't want the points to somehow get wasted or permanently assigned to them.