Here's the answer, and it isn't a points program: loyalty comes from three things no discount can buy. Belonging, ritual, and mission.
Belonging needs a boundary. An inner circle only exists if there's an outside: a name for members that they'd actually use about themselves, access others don't get, and rewards money can't buy, like input on the next product or the founder's ear. Programs built this way return roughly five times their cost and cut member churn nearly in half. Points math alone doesn't do that, because points expire in memory the moment they're spent.
Ritual is anything recurring that members would miss if it stopped. The monthly founder letter that admits what went wrong. The members-first product drop. The annual vote on what to make next, where the vote actually binds. Pick three rituals and protect them fiercely, because a ritual that skips a month teaches members the belonging was just a campaign.
Mission is the thing bigger than the product. It doesn't need to be grand, but it must be true and visible in your decisions, because customers recommend products while members recruit for causes.
One test separates the real thing from the trap: make it luxuriously easy to pause or cancel anything. Easy exits actually lower churn, because pausers come back and the trapped never do. That's the line between a cult following and a hostage situation.
The full build is Volume 3 of our Cult Following series.
Identity is the reward that never devalues.