Only respawn on runaway will NOT save your points!
There are only three ways to save your points/money:
1. You land in parachute
2. You use a service like repair or reload. Also if you bomb a hangar you get repaired.
3. You finish a mission. No matter if you win or lose.
If you kill 20 enemies you can lose ALL points as long you don't do one of these three steps. If you crash or someone kills you in parachute you will lose some points directly.
But after respawn on runaway are your points still unsaved. If you leave game now or you would lose connection, then you also would lose all points for these 20 kills.
I always use a simple trick to save my points then. I just hit the fire button when I take off for a second. When I hear the first shot I land again and hit brake. I get reloaded all points are save now.
If you have doubts then look my stats in the rankings. I found out this trick very late. But you can see a different to many other players. What shows that you can save a lot of money on the way to MoRAF.
And as far I know will zuperman change this system.
All your points are saved directly how it is in Dogfight mode: free4all
Then you will never again lose your points.