I experience the same points malfunction.
This morning, I also noticed that my member redemption options had locked icons after I had gone through the earning exercises to get my points for the day. I hadn't logged out in the meantime, but those locked icons were there, nevertheless.
I went back to home and restarted from my Hi, Lynn and was finally able to see points in red in the upper banner for the first time this morning. (I don't trust those points as they can lag behind one or more points activities.) But the black banner was still taunting me with black banner. The padlock icons in the redemption area were unlocked.
In the past, I have tried clearing cache and cookies and relogging in from scratch, and the only thing that ensures is that I lose all settings that I enjoy for every other site that I visit and I have to reset all those. It provides no discernible improvement in AARP Rewards.
I'll just continue to tread water.
Enjoy!