How to Set Up a Loyalty Program Like The North Face XPLR Pass on Shopify

The North Face XPLR Pass pays 10% back, and then it stops. Every 100 points is a $10 reward, but rewards are capped at $150 a year.

That is not hidden, and it is a deliberate design. Two decisions do the work: points convert into rewards in blocks of 100, and the total is capped at $50 per reward window and $150 a year. A rich rate with a hard ceiling is what makes the program affordable.

This guide walks through setting up a loyalty program like XPLR Pass on your own store, using Mage's Shopify loyalty program. Every setting is included, so you can follow it start to finish. It takes about twenty minutes, and if you would rather not do it yourself, our team will set the whole thing up for you free of charge.

What is the North Face XPLR Pass?

XPLR Pass is The North Face's free loyalty program. Members earn one point per dollar spent, online and in store, and every 100 points becomes a $10 reward. It is free to join, there is no paid tier, and there is no tier ladder at all. Every member gets the same benefits from the day they sign up, including free standard shipping with no minimum in the contiguous US.

If you already know the program, skip ahead to what you'll set up. Everything below describes XPLR Pass as it stands in 2026.

How the North Face XPLR Pass works

There are three moving parts, and it is worth separating them because you will build them separately.

XPLR Pass points

Members earn 1 point per $1 on merchandise. Tax, shipping, fees and gift cards do not earn. Points post within 1 to 10 days of the order, and a refund reverses them.

Points that are not converted into a reward within a year of being earned expire, which in practice means a leftover balance under 100 points. The North Face does not send a warning.

XPLR Pass rewards

Points convert into rewards in whole blocks of 100, issued three times a year:

Points are not rounded up: a balance of 99 is not worth $10. Each reward window pays out at most $50, which is the 500 point row, and a member can earn at most $150 across the year. The North Face issues rewards in June, October and March, for the points earned in the window that just closed.

Rewards are valid for eleven months after they are issued (not in Alberta, British Columbia or Quebec), and they are not gift cards: they cannot be exchanged for cash or credit.

North Face XPLR Pass benefits

Every member gets the same list on day one:

• Free standard shipping with no minimum, in the contiguous US
• A 15% welcome discount and a birthday surprise
• Early and exclusive access to limited edition collections and collaborations
• Gifts with certain purchases and savings on designated products
• Field testing: return gear within 30 days even if it has been worn, up to two times and $1,200 of product a year
• Extra points for referring friends, downloading the app, taking surveys, and checking in at stores and national parks, capped at 100 points a year in total

Note where those benefits sit. There is no tier to climb to reach them. One of the biggest standing perks, free shipping, is handed over at signup for nothing.

The two things that make the North Face loyalty program work

XPLR Pass looks simple. One rate, one currency, no tiers. It is doing two clever things, and if you copy the settings without noticing them you will copy the cost and miss the effect.

1. A rich rate with a hard ceiling

"1 point per $1, 100 points for $10" reads as a flat 10% back. It is, up to a ceiling. Work through what a member receives in a year:

The rate is a flat 10% up to $1,500 of spending a year, and then it falls, because the reward stops at $150. A member who spends $6,000 receives the same $150 as one who spends $1,500.

So the cost per customer has a ceiling. The most The North Face can pay in rewards to any member is $150 a year, however much they spend. That is the opposite of Ulta's approach, where higher tiers raise the earning rate for the biggest spenders.

The second effect is the one your customers feel. Someone sitting on 82 points is 18 points from $10. That is not an abstract balance, it is a number with an obvious action attached.

2. The best benefit is at the door, not at the top

Most loyalty programs save their strongest perk for the top tier. XPLR Pass gives away free shipping on every order to anyone who makes an account.

That is an acquisition mechanic, not a retention one. It converts the signup on the spot, because the value is immediate and unconditional, and it removes a common reason people abandon a small basket. The points then do the retention work in the background.

Two jobs, two mechanisms, and neither one needs a tier.

What that combination costs you

Take the headline seriously first. Ten percent back is very rich. Most Shopify stores cannot pay it uncapped, which is why The North Face caps it.

What you actually pay is 10% on the first $1,500 a customer spends in a year and nothing after that, so never more than $150 a customer a year, plus your shipping cost on every order.

This is the decision. The block size is the price and the cap is the ceiling. If a 10% headline is too rich for your margins, change the ratio: set 200 points to $10 for a 5% headline, or 400 points to $10 for 2.5%. If you cannot afford an uncapped rate, copy the cap as well, because a ceiling is what keeps a 10% rate affordable.

There is one part of XPLR Pass we would usually not copy. The North Face issues rewards in batches, three times a year, in June, October and March. Earn a reward in October and you wait until March to spend it, about five months. We would usually let customers redeem the moment they cross 100 points, because it is easier to explain and a five month wait is a long gap between earning and spending. The batches make most sense if your customers buy in seasons too.

What you'll set up

We will build this on an outdoor clothing store, with a program called Trail Pass. Rename it to suit your brand.

Step 1: Set your earning rate

Go to Loyalty → Earning Points and open the Purchase rule. It already exists, so there is nothing to create.

That is the XPLR Pass base rate exactly. Two things happen automatically and are worth knowing.

Points calculate on your merchandise subtotal, so tax and shipping never earn. That matches The North Face's exclusion list with no configuration at all.

Leave the exclusion box unchecked. Your customers will be checking out with reward codes constantly, and ticking that box would stop those orders earning anything.

On Approval Time, The North Face takes up to ten days to post points, which you could copy by setting this to 10. We would set it to 0. Instant points cost you nothing, and the moment a customer watches a balance move is the moment the program becomes real to them.

Step 2: Build the reward blocks

This is the heart of the program and the step that repays the most care.

Each block is a separate reward. Go to Loyalty → Redeeming Points → Add Reward → Fixed Discount and create five.

Use these settings on every one:

Then vary only these three:

Five fixed rewards, not one flexible one. This is the setting people get wrong, and getting it wrong changes how the program feels. A flexible reward lets a customer redeem any balance for a proportional discount, so 82 points becomes $8.20 and there is never a gap to close. That sounds generous and it is, but it deletes the staircase, because nobody is ever 18 points away from anything. Fixed blocks are what make the staircase exist.

Check all three combination boxes. This is our choice, not a rule we could find in The North Face's terms. Letting someone put $20 on top of a sale price is what makes a first redemption feel good, and a customer who redeems once is more likely to come back.

Expiry Days set to 334 is XPLR Pass's eleven month reward window, converted to days. It stops issued codes accumulating as an open ended liability and gives customers a reason to use them. Set it to 0 if you would rather rewards never expire.

Reactivate discount code on full refund stays unchecked, which matches The North Face. Return something bought with a reward and neither the reward nor the points come back. Check it if you would rather be more forgiving.

Show all five blocks together

Whatever else you do, present the five blocks as a single table or carousel. A customer looking at one block at a time cannot see the staircase, and cannot tell how close they are to the next step. The gap between 82 and 100 only motivates anybody who can see it. The North Face's $150 yearly ceiling is not a setting on a fixed reward. To cap what a customer can earn, price your top block against your margins, or use a cashback offer, which can limit how many times each customer earns it.

Step 3: Set up member free shipping

Free shipping with no minimum is one of the XPLR Pass headline benefits. This one is set up in Shopify rather than in Mage, and it takes about a minute.

In Shopify Admin → Discounts → Create discount → Automatic discount → Free shipping:

Automatic means there is no code to remember and nothing to apply. A logged in member sees free shipping at checkout, a guest does not, and the difference is visible at exactly the moment it converts a signup.

Restrict it to your domestic zone. The North Face limits free shipping to the contiguous United States and charges normally for Alaska and Hawaii, which is sensible anywhere carrier costs jump for remote regions.

If free shipping on every order is too much, add a minimum purchase amount rather than dropping the perk. Setting it to roughly your current average order value keeps the acquisition benefit intact and turns it into a basket builder at the same time.

The same pattern covers every other members only perk

Early access to launches, members only gifts and offers, an extended returns window like field testing: all of them run off the same segment. Gate a collection on it in your theme, target it in your email tool, or apply it as a customer service policy. None of them cost you anything until someone uses them.

Step 4: Add a birthday gift

Birthday gifts are one of the member benefits The North Face lists, and they are one rule.

Go to Loyalty → Earning Points → Add Earning Rule → Birthday.

One hundred points is a deliberate number. It is exactly one block, which means a birthday gift arrives as a whole $10 reward rather than as a part of one. A birthday gift of 60 points is worth nothing on its own and reads as an afterthought.

The Date of Birth Eligibility Period of 30 days is a small anti abuse setting. A customer has to have had their birthday on file for a month before it counts, so nobody sets their birthday to tomorrow.

Check that your signup form or customer account actually collects a date of birth, or the rule has nothing to fire on. There is more on building campaigns around this in Shopify birthday rewards.

Step 5: Add the extra ways to earn

XPLR Pass pays points for things that are not purchases: downloading the app, taking surveys, bringing a reusable bag, checking in at stores and national parks. Individually they are small. Together they are capped at 100 points a year, which is $10 of rewards.

Translate them to things your customers can actually do.

The app download and the survey

Go to Loyalty → Earning Points → Add Earning Rule → Visit URL and create two.

The quiz pays more than The North Face gives for a survey, deliberately. It tells you size, fit preference and what your customer actually does outdoors, which is the most commercially useful data an apparel store can collect. It also cuts returns, and in clothing a return costs you far more than 25 points.

The check in

The North Face pays members for bringing a reusable bag and for checking in at stores. The apparel version is a garment take back, and it works the same way.

Go to Loyalty → Earning Points → Add Earning Rule → Photo Challenge.

Submissions arrive in a review queue and points are only awarded when you approve one, so a photo of somebody's wardrobe does not cost you anything.

Days between uploads is the setting to think about. At 182 days a customer can earn this twice a year, which matches The North Face's reusable bag limit. Drop it to 30 and you have a monthly habit worth 300 points a year, which is three whole reward blocks. That is a real cost, so choose the number knowing what it adds up to rather than picking 30 because it sounds friendly.

Step 6: Turn on referrals

The North Face pays 25 points for a successful referral. At their own conversion rate that is $2.50, which is thin for handing over a customer.

We would pay properly on both sides. Go to Referrals, switch the program on, then add the two rewards.

Add Referring Customer Reward → Fixed Discount:

Add Referred Friend Reward → Fixed Discount:

The minimum spend on the friend's side and none on the advocate's is intentional. The friend is a stranger and the minimum protects your margin on a first order. The advocate has already earned their reward and should not have to clear a hurdle to use it.

Then set the fraud controls, which matter more on referrals than anywhere else in a loyalty program:

Block email aliases is the one people skip and the one that gets abused first. Without it, one person turns a single inbox into twenty referrals using plus addressing in about a minute.

Step 7: Turn on points expiry

Go to Loyalty → Loyalty Program → Points Expiry.

The North Face's rule is that points not converted into a reward within a year of being earned expire, without warning, which in practice means a leftover balance under 100 points. The closest setting here is Time after points are acquired mode, set to 365 days. It is harsher than The North Face's rule, because in Mage customers choose when to redeem and any unspent points expire a year after they are earned, so keep the reminder on.

The other mode, Customer's last purchase date, works on inactivity instead. Every order resets the clock on the whole balance, so someone who keeps shopping never loses a point. Several large programs run it that way.

Expiry does more work in a block based program than in a proportional one, because the customer sitting on 82 points now has a deadline attached to a number they can see. That combination, a visible gap and a visible clock, is a strong redemption driver. It is also the fastest way to annoy people if you get the timing wrong, so read our guide on points expiry that drives redemptions without annoying customers before you commit.

The 30 day reminder gives customers a nudge before it happens. Those emails are consistently some of the highest converting a loyalty program sends.

Step 8: Schedule a bonus campaign

The North Face runs member offers and promotions. In Mage that is a scheduled campaign.

Go to Loyalty → Bonus Campaigns → Create Bonus Campaign.

A 3x weekend does something specific in a block program. It can push a large group of customers across a block boundary at the same time, which can produce a wave of redemptions a few weeks later. Time one about a month before a slow trading period and the redemptions land when you want the traffic.

Scoping to a collection means only those products multiply rather than your whole catalogue. Set the status to Scheduled and the campaign runs itself.

There is a second campaign type, Tiered, if you would rather run a spend and get promotion. Spend $75, get 200 bonus points. Same idea, different shape.

Step 9: Send a points drop

XPLR Pass includes surprises: gifts with certain purchases and a birthday surprise, none of which a member has to ask for. A points drop is the cheapest version of that and it takes two minutes.

Go to Loyalty → Points Drops → Create Points Drop.

One hundred points is exactly one reward block, so every recipient gets a complete $10 reward rather than a fragment of one. That is the difference between a gift and a nudge.

Expires after is the setting that makes this work. Dropped points run on their own 30 day clock, separate from your normal expiry. Without a deadline a surprise gift just sits in the balance and changes nobody's behaviour. With one it gives people a reason to act now, and the drop results page shows you exactly how much was redeemed and how much expired.

Step 10: Put it in front of customers

A loyalty program nobody can see does not work. Three surfaces to set up:

Loyalty Pages. Your landing page. Add the How it works, Ways to earn, Ways to redeem and FAQ blocks. They populate themselves from everything you just set up.

Account Sidebar. The signed in view, showing balance and the rewards available right now.

Checkout points earned. Shows customers the points they are about to earn while they are paying.

Spend your time on one block above all others. Ways to redeem is where the five blocks become visible as a staircase, and where a customer on 82 points finds out they are 18 away from $10. Every mechanic in this guide depends on that number being somewhere the customer can see it.

You don't have to copy all of it

Very few stores need the whole thing, and it comes apart cleanly.

If you want one thing, make it the block structure in Step 2. Fixed blocks instead of a proportional rate is a single decision, it costs nothing to implement, and it changes how customers behave in it.

If margin is tight, keep every step and change one number. Two hundred points for $10 gives you a 5% headline with identical mechanics.

If you sell high value items infrequently, free shipping in Step 3 will outperform the points entirely, and it is the fastest thing on this list to set up.

If your customers already buy often, the extra earning rules in Step 5 and the bonus campaign in Step 8 will move more revenue than the base rate will.

If they buy occasionally, the birthday gift in Step 4, the expiry reminders in Step 7 and the points drop in Step 9 do more for you than anything else here.

Take the parts that suit how your customers actually shop.

We'll set it up for you, free

If you would rather not configure any of this yourself, our team will do it for you at no cost. That includes the full build above, tuned to your catalogue and your margins, plus your branding across the widget, sidebar and loyalty pages. Everything in this guide runs on Mage's Shopify loyalty program, so you can see the full feature set before you start.

Already running a loyalty program somewhere else? We handle migrations free of charge too, including your existing customer balances, tiers and history, so nobody loses the points they have earned. We have migrated stores from Smile.io, LoyaltyLion, Yotpo, Rivo, Stamped, Joy and Bubblehouse.

Talk to our team and tell us what you want your program to look like.

Frequently asked questions

What is North Face XPLR Pass? XPLR Pass is The North Face's free loyalty program, open to customers in the United States and Canada. Members earn 1 point per dollar spent online and in store, and every 100 points becomes a $10 reward, up to $50 per reward window and $150 a year. It is free to join, there are no tiers, and every member gets free standard shipping with no minimum in the contiguous US from the day they sign up.

How does the North Face XPLR Pass work? XPLR Pass works on a block system with a yearly cap. You earn 1 point per dollar on merchandise, and points convert into rewards in units of 100 points for $10. Points are not rounded up, so a balance of 180 points is worth $10 and not $18. Rewards are issued in June, October and March, up to $50 per window and $150 a year. Points not converted within a year expire, rewards are valid for eleven months after they are issued, and rewards are not gift cards. That is the program as of 2026.

What are the benefits of the North Face loyalty program? Every XPLR Pass member gets the same benefits with no tier to climb: free standard shipping with no minimum, a 15% welcome discount, a birthday surprise, early access to limited edition collections and collaborations, gifts and savings on designated products, and a 30 day field testing returns policy. Members also earn extra points for referring friends, downloading the app, taking surveys and checking in at stores. Most of those are reproduced in this guide.

How many points do you need for a North Face reward? One hundred points, which is $100 spent, gets you a $10 reward. The scale runs in $10 blocks up to $50 for 500 points in each reward window, and rewards are capped at $150 a year. Points are never rounded up, so 199 points converts to $10, the same as 100 points. The yearly cap is the single most important thing to understand about the program.

Do North Face XPLR Pass points expire? Yes, in two ways. Points not converted into a reward within a year of being earned expire, which in practice means a leftover balance under 100 points, and issued rewards expire eleven months after they are issued, except in Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec. The North Face does not warn members about either. In this guide that is a 365 day points expiry set to the date acquired, with a 30 day reminder, and 334 expiry days on every reward.

How do I create a loyalty program like the North Face XPLR Pass on Shopify? Every part of the structure in this guide can be set up in Mage: the 1 point per dollar earning rate, the five fixed reward blocks running from 100 points to 500, free shipping for members, the birthday gift, referrals, extra earning rules for app downloads and surveys and check ins, points expiry, bonus campaigns and points drops. This guide covers each step with the exact settings to use.

How long does it take to set up? About twenty minutes if you follow this guide. If you would rather it was done for you, our team sets it up free of charge, including your branding.

Should my rewards be fixed blocks or a flexible amount? Fixed blocks change customer behaviour, and flexible amounts do not. With blocks a customer on 82 points knows they are 18 from something, which is a reason to add an item to a basket. With a flexible reward that same customer has $8.20 available and no reason to wait or to spend more. Blocks also keep every reward a round number, which makes the cost easy to forecast. Flexible redemption is friendlier and simpler to explain, so choose it if you would rather maximise redemption rate than shape behaviour. You cannot get both from the same reward.

Is free shipping for everyone too generous? Free shipping on every order is a real cost. Before deciding, work out what you currently spend on shipping promotions and threshold offers, because most stores are already paying a version of this less deliberately. If the unconditional version is too much, add a minimum purchase amount at roughly your average order value. You keep the signup benefit and gain a basket builder.

What happens to points when a customer returns something? Points earned on that order are removed automatically, including any bonus points from a campaign. Partial refunds reverse points proportionally. Tax and shipping never earned points in the first place, so nothing needs unwinding there. If the order was paid for with a reward, the code can be reactivated so the customer keeps what they redeemed, if you tick that option. The build in this guide leaves it off, to match The North Face.

Can I switch from my current loyalty app without losing customer points? Yes. We migrate balances, tiers and history from other loyalty platforms free of charge, so your customers keep everything they have earned. There is more detail in our guide to migrating from Smile.io without losing customer points.