SP Credits

[trish1]

I obviously haven't been doing much Scottish research recently. Just had an email from SP telling me I have 6 credits - which I guess is one document - soon to expire. If someone would like to use my credits - answer here (I guess only the first answer will be valid) & PM the details. I think I have purchased the details for all my scottish ancestors over the past 15 years & cannot think of anything I need to buy at the minute.

Trish

[jgmills]

Although they say they are about to expire, they will always be there, in future if you need to lookup anything you would buy more credits and that six will be re-instated. So you won't loose them, unless you really have finished your Scottish links.

[trish1]

Didn't see this earlier - thanks for the info

Trish

[arthurk]

Since the previous posts were made, there has been a change of policy at SP. I have a fair few unused credits which were due to expire tomorrow and went to the site to check that I could reactivate them at any time, but discovered that this is no longer the case. The current T&Cs (16 March 2021) say this:

Credits are available to purchase, are valid for a period of two years from time of purchase and will expire if you do not use them in that time. Credits purchased through a voucher are valid for 2 years following the date from which the voucher is redeemed. However, a purchase of additional credits before the expiry date activates a new session of two years for any unexpired credits held in your account at that time.

(From https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/cont ... conditions)

For comparison, this is what the old T&Cs (September 2010) say:

5.5 Page credit purchases cannot be refunded. Any unused credits will remain in your account after your one year session expires. A Purchase of additional credits activates a new session of one year, and the credits you Purchase for your next session will simply be added to your existing base.

(From https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/cont ... conditions - but I've a feeling the one year might have changed to two at some point)

So it's now important to know when your credits are going to expire, and make sure you either use them or renew them by buying more.

However, there's a twist: my credits were due to expire tomorrow, but when I went to the site today I saw that they'd been automatically extended until 1 April 2022, so I didn't have to buy any today after all.