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What happens if my bounty time expires?

I will lose this bounty points or I will take it back?

If I did a bounty but I had no answer, what's the next steps is suggested?

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    $\begingroup$ From the faq: "[...] you will always give up the amount of reputation specified in the bounty [...]". See here for further details. $\endgroup$
    – t.b.
    Oct 31, 2011 at 12:51

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From https://math.stackexchange.com/faq#bounty

If you do not award your bounty within 7 days (plus the grace period), the highest voted answer created after the bounty started with at least 2 upvotes will be awarded half the bounty amount. If there's no answer meeting that criteria, the bounty is not awarded to anyone.

and

In any case, you will always give up the amount of reputation specified in the bounty, so if you start a bounty, be sure to follow up and award your bounty to the best answer!

If even after you imposed a bounty you get no answers, the most likely explanation is that no user currently active on the site knows the answer to your question. You can try asking it elsewhere, or wait a bit before assigning a bounty yet again (hoping that someone new and knowledgeable joins the community).

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    $\begingroup$ In that Question I had put a bounty, and I hadn't no answer, but there are voted comments. @WillieWong as you say above my points should came back to me...what's happenend? Why not came back? $\endgroup$
    – GarouDan
    Nov 4, 2011 at 0:36
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    $\begingroup$ Where did you read that your points would come back? Read the second quote again: you will always give up the amount of reputation. That pretty clearly means that once you start a bounty, those points are gone. You won't get them back. $\endgroup$
    – Willie Wong
    Nov 4, 2011 at 9:36
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    $\begingroup$ Undestood...that's bad. Thanks. $\endgroup$
    – GarouDan
    Nov 4, 2011 at 9:50
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    $\begingroup$ @Garou, Think of it this way: you used your rep to pay for the privilege of the question being featured more prominently than usual. Getting answers is but a bonus. Like advertisements on TV, the money spent for making the advertisements and paid to the TV stations isn't returned if no one buys the product. $\endgroup$
    – J. M. ain't a mathematician
    Nov 4, 2011 at 14:03
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    $\begingroup$ @J.M.isback. That's a really good point you made. They should explain it that way on the place-a-bounty page. $\endgroup$
    – Jerry Guern
    Oct 9, 2015 at 10:34
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    $\begingroup$ I agree with GarouDan that it is bad that in the case no answer was given the bounty-points are gone. I do not see a reasonable reason for that. And it is even worse that a bounty cannot be stopped. $\endgroup$
    – Peter
    Jul 4, 2016 at 7:58
  • $\begingroup$ "No (good) answer is received" might contain lots of information as well. For example, it may indicate that your problem is indeed very hard, a piece of information that is very hard to obtain. You are more confident to ask for a reward if you manage to find an answer later. You are more confident that your have not missed possibly easy answers. Or that your question is in a field less popular or less interesting than you had expected. Or that you have not put the question in a form that appeals to a large part of users. $\endgroup$
    – Apass.Jack
    Oct 16, 2018 at 17:31

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