Getting expired AA miles back?
 

I let 7,741 AA miles expire over in the last year. Anyone know of any way that's worth it to get them back?

Thanks,
-Matt

Welcome to Flyertalk. :)

They are gone. Forever. :(

This actually happend to me earlier this year. I had 19K miles that expired! When I called AA, they said that if I had a rental car receipt or a hotel receipt or any other receipt for a service which they offered miles, BEFORE the expiration date of my miles, they would credit them and my expired miles would reapear.

My miles expired in December 2004, so I was able to find a receipt from a Marriott Hotel I stayed in back in July 2004. I was able to get those miles posted and the 19K miles were reinserted into my account.

Hopefully that will work for you!

Now you have to read this forum, do like we all do, fly a lot. Pretty soon you'll be at a million miles and a mere 7,741 will be forgotten. Trust me :).

Cheers.

I have flown a fair amount (but not like you all!), and been a lurker on this forum a bit too. I'm particularily intrigued by you "mileage runners". And I don't usually fly America, but my friend convinced me to sign up for a few credit card deals, so that's why I was looking back at my old AA miles.

But I signed up for the AA and United credit cards, so I should have a bunch of miles on the way!

Thanks for the warm welcome...
-Matt

Well, it doesn't take a whole lot to keep the miles, just one activity every 3 years. This could be a mileage gain or loss. A tiny charitable contribution would have done it. Or, a cheap Hertz car rental... Or charging $1 to an AA credit card. As was mentioned, if you can find a receipt for anything that would qualify like a partner hotel or car agency, you could probably get the miles back.

This happened to my grandma. Years ago, I signed her up for a TWA (!!) account and the miles expired last December due to lack of activity. I wrote a letter to AA pleading her case (she's old, she doesn't understand frequent flier programs, I'm PLT, etc.). I got a very nice letter back saying that AA would make a one-time exception and would reinstate her points if she had activity in the next six months.

FYI, I made a donation to the Park Service (telephone, not online) and 5 weeks later I am still waiting for the points. Called AA a few days ago, and they told me it takes 6-8 weeks to post them. (Maybe I should have made the donation online?... would that have been better...?).

But I have had success in pleading nicely. :)

My mother brilliantly let 250K AAdvantage miles expire (we're talking miles from the 80s). They wouldn't give her even 1 back.

Boy am I an idiot. Somehow, on all my AAdvantage e-mails, I didn't notice that I hadn't had any activity since 2002 (which actually I find a little hard to believe, but...). And so, on 5/15, all of my 39,000 miles disappeared. :(

I e-mailed them and they suggested what has been said here-- going back over the past year to try and find something where I should have gotten miles. I'm doing that frantically now. But I'm so mad at myself. Obviously not visiting this website often enough!

Yes You Can
 

I just found out that you can reactiviate miles for a fee. The miles must have expired after 12/31/2002. The cost is $50 per 5,000 miles plus a $30 per transaction fee. No limit on the number of miles. Call AAdvantage Customer Service to do this.

Well, Matt, there you have it - FT does it again. :)

You can try to find a recepit where a spend would have earned miles if you'd used your FFN (hotel car rental, etc.) and call, you can reinstate with money (why does THAT not surprise me!) or learn to say "GOodbye" in many languages.

Adios. Kwaheri. Sayonara. Adio. Ciao. Auf wiedersehen. Totsiens. Ma as-salaama. Tata. Farvel. Moce mada. Au revoir. Khairete. Aloha. Ratukama. Do svidanja. Sala sentlê. Güle güle. Lukim yu bihain (tok pisin, my favorite!).

Guess it would depend "how" you're going to use the miles before deciding to reactivate them. It would cost $280 to reactivate 25,000 miles. For that same $280, I could buy a transcon ticket on a decent sale and accumulate the miles on it. Buying the miles back may not be worthwhile for everyone.

I think it's a bit less than 25k miles.

BTW, ewl and kuharicm, welcome to FT!

If you read a little back, you'll see one poster talking about 39,000 miles he lost.

I also read where the poster with the missing 39k was sorting recepits.

Getting a little short, are we? Not that anyone's counting... ;)