Hi Michael. I just moved to Odoo (v18) a month ago and it seems it's the 'normal' behavior for customers to be able to use points as they place the order.

There's a possible fix but I haven't tried it myself yet. Do test on a duplicate database.

• enable developer mode (or add ?debug=1 to the URL)
• go to your loyalty program
• you will now see 3 radio buttons that are normally hidden
• change to "use points on future order" as the default is set to "current & future orders"

As I said, I haven't tried yet. Please let me know how it goes. Another way to circumvent the problem is to increase the minimum threshold to use points. In your case, use 100 points to claim 10 pounds instead of 10 points to claim 1 pound. That way most customers won't be able to use points right off the bat.

Still, there's nothing linking points to payments in Odoo which is bewildering. A customer can place a 1000$ order and get a lot of points. Use them on a 2nd order and then cancel the 1st order. The points are subtracted when an order is cancelled and the balance can become negative. When an order is edited (products added or removed from the sales order), the loyalty points gained don't change. There's a lot of space for improvements.