Premium bonds - can someone explain how they work please?! Possibly stupid question

[Sarahjsxx]

Hello,
So my mum has £50,000 in a premium bonds account that's been there since at least 2016. At that point we had it set that she received cheques whenever she won a prize, but we had an issue with them turning up so it was changed to 'reinvest into more bonds'. I hadn't logged in for ages and have just logged in today, can anyone help me understand please
So I checked prize history, for example I can see in December it says Prize Value £50 x2 and so forth for previous months
I then downloaded her 'Bond Record'
It says balance £50,000, and Bond Numbers value - £24,875 most of these are small amounts of £25 apart from one amount of £24,000 (from 2016)
So can anyone tell me what happens when she wins a prize is it reinvested? Is this not a good option given she has the maximum amount in her account already? What is the £24,875? The bond record stops at 2019, so where have the prizes gone from 2019-2023?
Thanks for any advice, sorry if a stupid question we don't have anyone else to ask (obviously can check her bank account tomorrow or call them but just wondering now!)

It can't reinvest in more bonds if she's at the maximum so will probably have been sending cheques or paying into a bank account she has nominated but if it's small sums it may have been missed.

Is she registered for premium bonds online? This should be able to tell you where payments are being sent.

They stopped sending cheques a little while ago, and only do bank transfers now.

Sounds as if the 'bond numbers value' is the prizes won since she stopped getting cheques, and must be in some sort of holding account if they don't have bank details for her. Think you (or she) would need to contact NS&I to set up bank details.

You definitely don't want it set to reinvest if she's at max, so will need to change that and add bank details anyway.

Hello, thank you for the replies!
She does have an online account, that's what I was looking at but I couldn't understand it does say set to reinvest, but she also has her bank details on the account too. I'm just confused what would happen if you're already at the maximum amount of money on your balance!

If you’re at your maximum, it should be paid into the nominated bank account.

If you have 50k in bonds it stops actioning a request to reinvest. The winnings get sent to your nominated bank account. Many of us have a NSI directsaver account they get paid into but it doesn't have to. You can nominate a regular bank account too - like Lloyd's etc

They used to send cheques but I think that's stopped now. If you think winnings are missing you can write to NSI - well, your Mum can- and they'll check they've been paid aren't being held waiting for a claim.

We used to reinvest winnings and then there was only £12 left to make the balance of bonds 50k. So NSI reinvested the £12 and paid £13 into our nominated account. Now winnings go into that nominated account.

If you win one of the big wins they don't automatically pay you but write and ask you where you want it to be credited - which might be the nominated account or it might not be. Your choice.

Okay, thank you so much for the replies, the reasonable answer is it must be going into her bank account!

It should appear in your mum's nominated bank account; if she wins two £25 prizes it would be two payments, each with a long number and then 'Pbz'. Or at least that's how it looks like in mine.