Re:Ask HN: Why Do AI Credits Expire
by Littice on Sunday June 21, 2026 @11:36AM
(#48619828)
The gift card analogy breaks down a bit: a gift card doesn’t get more expensive for the store to redeem later.
Compute can.
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| on HN ]
Back when I experimented with getting ChatGPT by paying for API access rather than the official subscription, the credit was denominated in money, not in tokens.
Compute does whatever it does, but $5 sitting in an account to be spent on tokens at some arbitrary time in the future, earns money for OpenAI etc. even when they didn't make it expire.