I have miles accured prior to Jan 1, 2000 on US, that US said in their DM written agreement and on the web will NEVER expire, and are not subject to the 3 year active limit requirements. Both in writing and on the web, as recently as 2005. I have a written print out of the web pages dated 2005 in fact that states this in two separate places.

I showed no activity in a while on US, flying lots instead and accruing miles on UA, etc. Didn't bother to post any car rental or auxillary activity on US, since I knew that the miles could never expire.

Now DM has zeroed out the account (!) and claims that "they have the right to change the program at any time" and won't recredit the miles unless I pay for them!

Help?!?!

Does anyone have any experience with getting miles restored? It appear that I am in the same situation. I ceded control of my account to my sister in a swap, but it appears that she failed to keep the account active and the miles were erased. I never got the letter. I only checked today after I learned that there was a new 18 month rule that my wife got an email notice about that will soon take effect.

They are normally good about giving you other opportunities to get them reinstated aside from flat out paying them -- apply for a US credit card, fly one round-trip in the next 6 months etc.

Unfortunately, they are correct that program rules are subject to change without notice. In fact, the DM program you earned all the miles in 2000 for all intents and purposes does not exist anymore.

claims that "they have the right to change the program at any time" and won't recredit the miles unless I pay for them.Since you put it in quotes, you must acknowledge that that is in the T&C's so is the issue that you don't know what it means?

As with many other things US has done recently, it's slimy but within their rules - I doubt you will win an argument with them. This is just another in a long line of examples of behavior that has caused many of us long-time supporters to now regard them as just another supplier of long metal flying tubes.

An update:
1) Although FF programs have the right to change the rules at any time, they do not have the right to change them in a way that, without warning, takes away what a partner (i.e.. mileage earner) has earned in good faith in the implied contract that exists between the airline FF program and the participant. If for example, they say that if you earn 40,000 miles, or whatever, and say that those miles will not expire for 36 months and you will be able to redeem them for whatever award is available and you are eligible for during that time period, then the FF program can not come along and change the rules unilaterally between partners in an implied contract and say that the new rules are, for example: anyone who does not redeem their miles in the next 10 minutes loses them all, no matter what, because we changed the rules as per our right. That is simply illegal and the courts have so ruled repeatedly on that point with regard to many FF programs and rule changes.

That is what happened here. At literally one second before the rule change, in 2005, the miles I had earned were guaranteed to never expire, according to their rules, and I had earned those miles and complied with the program rules throughout in good faith. And then literally one second after they changed the rules, unilaterally, to state that if an account had no activity in 36 prior months, all of their miles expired, then from that second forward, my miles expired, with nothing I could do about it in any form.

2) There is a happy ending. There are still "newer" DM activity rules as of a week ago: Their "newer" rules now say that if you have not had activity within the last year, you have untill the end of 2006 to have activity and retain all of your older miles no matter what...so that is now recourse for keeping miles active in cases such as mine. Many people must have complained that the new DM rules that went into effect wiped out their miles with no notice nor recourse (as they did to mine), which DM can't do.

I have no problem with having activity and having recourse to retain my miles; I do have a problem with them being wiped off the map in literally one second with nothing that I could do about it whatsoever, when I complied in good faith with all of the program rules up to that time.

So I have activity now as probably do many others and will keep the miles, under the newest program rules...which is the right thing and hooray for DM realizing and changing it to accomodate situations such as this ^

I have miles accured prior to Jan 1, 2000 on US, that US said in their DM written agreement and on the web will NEVER expire, and are not subject to the 3 year active limit requirements. Both in writing and on the web, as recently as 2005. I have a written print out of the web pages dated 2005 in fact that states this in two separate places.

I showed no activity in a while on US, flying lots instead and accruing miles on UA, etc. Didn't bother to post any car rental or auxillary activity on US, since I knew that the miles could never expire.

Now DM has zeroed out the account (!) and claims that "they have the right to change the program at any time" and won't recredit the miles unless I pay for them!

Help?!?!

I would think that the clause about being "able to change the program at any time" applies here. At the moment, keeping miles active requires 'activity' on the account within 3 years, shortly to drop to 18 months.

I would write a strongly, yet politely, worded email to executive.office@usairways.com and see what they say.

Without the court I do not see any way those cowboys can be convinced to obey civilized rules of interaction between people.

When Delta did the same thing some 10 years ago the court forced them to establish two programs: one for old unexpiring miles and one for new expiring miles.
It would seem that an honest person after promising the "our miles NEVER expire" would honor such a commitment. I would think that when the miles are earned they cannot go back and change their expiration date, but than again in the country without the civil code - anything is possible.


I have miles accured prior to Jan 1, 2000 on US, that US said in their DM written agreement and on the web will NEVER expire, and are not subject to the 3 year active limit requirements. Both in writing and on the web, as recently as 2005. I have a written print out of the web pages dated 2005 in fact that states this in two separate places.

I showed no activity in a while on US, flying lots instead and accruing miles on UA, etc. Didn't bother to post any car rental or auxillary activity on US, since I knew that the miles could never expire.

Now DM has zeroed out the account (!) and claims that "they have the right to change the program at any time" and won't recredit the miles unless I pay for them!

Help?!?!

. . . I have no problem with having activity and having recourse to retain my miles; I do have a problem with them being wiped off the map in literally one second with nothing that I could do about it whatsoever, when I complied in good faith with all of the program rules up to that time . . .

I can appreciate the angst, but to be honest, "complied in good faith with all of the program rules up to that time " sounds more like a legal sort of excuse for not checking in regularly to see what's up with the airline. Every airline and hotel chain have disclaimers about T&C regarding their FF programs and rewards programs and they all leave change open to the future -- no surprise there.

In your case, you're talking near 7 years ago for the miles and near 2 years since checking T&C with an airline that was in flux and change with bankruptcies and mergers. I'm puzzled that if you know that one need only charge a car rental or flowers to a FF account once a year to play it safe, that you don't exercise that option instead of assuming anything.

I'm big time involved with Marriott timeshare as well as flying US -- lots of MR points and FF miles involved. But I make it a point to check their programs T&C a couple of times each year to keep up to date about what is happening. I also keep a couple of other airline FF accounts active with a single purchase each year. Not a lot of miles involved, but I'm holding on to 'em.

Not trying to criticize you here, but your incredulity puzzles me given that lots of airlines have been tweaking their programs in the past 7 years. In the case of US, they've been pretty up front in posting changes. Whether folks agree with the changes is another issue.

Barry