Birthdays are great. Cake! An increasingly sprawling number of candles! Microsoft Rewards points! Wait… come again? Yup, you can indeed claim birthday gifts from the Xbox App if you own an Xbox Series X/S or use Xbox Game Pass on a gaming laptop. Though said gifts aren’t exceptionally glamorous and require you to make purchases on the Microsoft Store before you can claim them, they’re better than nothing. Below, we’ll guide you through the process of how you can earn Rewards points during your birthday week, while also breaking down exactly what these points can be spent on.

Microsoft doesn’t technically gift you anything on the week of your birthday. Crappy of the Big M, we know. Before you glumly put away all your party streamers, though, you can claim extra Microsoft Rewards points during your birthday week. We’ll explain more about that shortly. As for what you can spend these points on, don’t go dreaming that you’ll be able to claim Forza Horizon 6 or Halo Campaign Evolved if you accumulate a bunch of them. Sadly, the rewards aren’t quite that exciting.

Once you go to the Xbox Rewards hub, you’ll find a fairly limited array of items you can unlock. These range from gift cards to digital currency for select games. Want some examples? A $5/£5 Xbox gift card can be claimed for 6,820 Rewards points; a Candy Crush gift card costs 1,500 points; a League of Legends gift card costs 6,500 points; an Ancient Coin Pack for Sea of Thieves costs 1,700 points; and 330 Minecraft Minecoins will set you back 2,500 points. In a nice touch, you can also give $1/£1 to various charities (like UNICEF or Girls Who Code) by donating 1,000 Rewards points.

There are a couple of caveats before you can claim your birthday-related Rewards points. First up, you obviously need a Microsoft Account. You also need to sign up for Rewards with Xbox. Once you’ve ticked these two boxes, you can start earning points. As for your birthday, starting on the Monday of the week you inch one step closer to the grave and concluding on the Sunday, you’ll earn double Microsoft Rewards points for any game or add-on/piece of DLC you buy from the Microsoft Store.

After you’ve completed your purchase, head to the Xbox Rewards hub (most easily accessed through the Xbox app) to see how many points you’ve racked up. While we’ve already made it clear you can’t unlock the best Xbox games with your points, if you’re obsessed with Candy Crush or Sea of Thieves, the various gift cards you can splurge on aren’t too shabby. Because Rewards points can’t be spent directly on games themselves, we’d advise that you don’t waste any birthday money you might have been given on the Microsoft Store just to earn said points.