What is the difference between total career points and retirement points in the military?

I spent 3 years, 9 months and 10 days on active duty (was released 3 months early for graduate school) That gives me on my retirement printout 1371 retirement points. Then, I joined the guard and received another 164. Total retirement points 1535 for a total 5 "good" years. However, I also did some correspndence corses which I was told to turn in to the retirement person which shows up on my printout as "ACCP Misc Points" and is added to the "Total Career Points" column--NOT the "Total Points for Retirement Pay" column. Question--what is the difference between "career points" and "retirement points?" If career points are not calculted for retirement pay, what are they good for? To the one responder so far--I am sure you know what you are talking about--however, I have no idea what "non-retirement bond" means.

Public Comments

1. Total career points adds to non-retirement bond.
2. Ok, you are allowed to add up to 90(after 2000 ) (IDT/Membership/ACCP) to your retirement points each year. Normally you gain 15 membership points each year you are in the Guard. And four IDT points for each full drill weekend. Plus you can earn one IDT point for every three credit hours of correspondence courses with a grade of satisfactory or better. These are your career points. They are added to your retirement points, to calculate your retirement. But again, you are only allowed to add 90 Career points per year. You are not allowed to carry over non allowed career points from one year to the next. IE: if you earned 110 career points in 2007, you would only be allowed to count 90 of them for retirement, and the other 20, would not count. You would not be allowed to shift the 20 to 2008. Think of career points as Bonus retirement points.