MilesBuzz! - Reminder: Start checking FF/hotel accounts for expiring miles

Maybe this should be a sticky, to remind ourselves:

Thought this would be a nice reminder to start logging into your dormant airline and hotel accounts to see when your miles expire. If they expire this year, sign up for Idine under that airline, register your credit card and charge a small meal/lunch at a participating restaurant and this will re-activate your miles another three years.

If you need tips for how to keep your miles active, I'll list a few here:

AA: Idine, Opinionplace, Kelloggs miles, transfer from hotels: Starwood,
Priority Club, Hilton, car rental, hotel stay,

UA: Idine, car rental, hotel stay, transfer from hotels:Starwood, Priority Club,

NW: Idine, car rental, hotel stay, transfer from hotels: Starwood, Priority Club

DL: Idine. car rental, hotel stay, transfer from hotels: Starwood, Priority Club

CO: Idine?, car rental, hotel stay, transfer from hotels: Starwood, PC Club

Good luck...

Here's another tip : car rental. Normally I credit my Avis rentals to BA (250 miles per rental) but occasionally switch it to a US airline (50 miles a day) to "activate" the account against expiration. Like the OP, I also use iDine for the same purpose.

Not sure about the other airliners. AA, UA, NW all have these partnerships with merchants from their websites. Make sure you shop via the airliner's link though. Some of them evern offer bonus miles for your holiday shopping. :)

Thanks for starting the thread, Sggolf. One question, though. Does the credit have to be posted on the account (and therefore can be viewed online) by year's end, or would it be all right to simply have the transaction dated on or before December 31? If the former, it may already be too late now. I am thinking about Delta in particular. The debit (of an insignificant number of miles) for a magazine subscription ordered weeks ago still has not been posted. Does anyone have any experience here? Any comments appreciated.

The original post is a kind reminder. However, one should note that several airlines have 3 year expirations that do not necessarily end on December 31st.

Delta: miles expire on 12/31 3 years after the last activity
Northwest: rules state that miles expire after 3 years but there are several reports of miles not expiring
Continental: rules state that they have the option of cancelling miles after 18 months of no activity but there are many reports that this rule is not enforced.
United: miles expire 3 years after the date of last activity. This is strictly enforced. You can buy back your miles for 1 year after it expires.
American: miles expire 3 years after the date of last activity. I read a magazine article about someone losing 1M miles. They wrote to American in advance asking that their miles not be cancelled. American refused. The passenger played chicken and saw their account drop to zero.

Add to that

British Air: miles expire 3 years after the date of last activity.
Midwest: miles expire 3 years after the date of last activity.

American: miles expire 3 years after the date of last activity. I read a magazine article about someone losing 1M miles. They wrote to American in advance asking that their miles not be cancelled. American refused. The passenger played chicken and saw their account drop to zero.

:confused:
That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. Why would anyone play chicken with 1M miles? For that many miles, it'd be worth doing a tiny MR (e.g. LAX-SAN) just to keep the account active!

:confused:
That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. Why would anyone play chicken with 1M miles? For that many miles, it'd be worth doing a tiny MR (e.g. LAX-SAN) just to keep the account active!

Forget the MR, I would buy a box of cereal!

Forget the MR, I would buy a box of cereal!Unfortunately, as reported recently here (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=365653) in the AA forum, Kelloggs is no longer producing ceral boxes with AAdvantage coupons. If anyone needs a few boxes to complete a set of 5, now is the time to try to find them.

Yes, I noticed that my daughter's delta account would expire this December so I switched a credit card to her account and ate at a restaurant. Did the same with my account even though I had til next year - this way the expiration will be the same and easier to remember. She only has 7122 - but why lose them. I have 108K and definitely don't want to lose them. You never know when aa won't come through with availability and Delta will. Most of my miles were from MCI and and AMEX credit card promotions.

Yes, I noticed that my daughter's delta account would expire this December so I switched a credit card to her account and ate at a restaurant. Did the same with my account ...She only has 7122 - but why lose them. I have 108K and definitely don't want to lose them....

dgordon, you may want to top another free 10K to the Delta accounts for your family. Have you played the Dash to the Gate Game yet? There are cross posting of this promo all over Delta forum, MilesBuzz!, SPAM...etc.

Edited Just read the update from other forums. Seems Delta just pulled this promo. Hope you didn't miss it though!

lin821

dgordon, you may want to top another free 10K to the Delta accounts for your family. Have you played the Dash to the Gate Game yet? There are cross posting of this promo all over Delta forum, MilesBuzz!, SPAM...etc.

Edited Just read the update from other forums. Seems Delta just pulled this promo. Hope you didn't miss it though!

lin821Don't give up on the game yet. Some found a way to continue playing it after it was pulled.

However, it's not clear that those miles will post by Dec. 31.

This is good for any Onepass member, and can be found through the website.

1. Go to www.onepass.com (or www.continental.com) and click on Frequent Flier, News & Offers link. Then click on the "Continental Tab". You will see the "Our Gift to You Sweepstakes" link:
"Win a $5,000 gift card in the "Our Gift to You" Sweepstakes
The gift-giving season -- it's the ideal time to visit Continental Airlines ShopOnePass. Here you'll find something for everyone on your holiday list, plus a gift of 100 OnePass bonus miles.
Register Now 19 days left from 12/12/2004.
(Ends Fri., Dec. 31, 2004) Mon., Nov. 1, 2004 posted. "

So, click that link, and type in your Onepass Number in the white box in the blue window.
Other terms:
"The gift-giving season -- it's the ideal time to visit Continental Airlines ShopOnePass. Here you'll find something for everyone on your holiday list, and there's a gift of OnePass miles for you. Plus with a little luck, you could even win one of these valuable prizes:
Grand Prize: $5,000 Circuit City® Gift Card.
First Prize (2): L.L.Bean® Camping Package for Four or Kayaking Package for Two.
Second Prize: DellTM 17 inch LCD TV.
Third Prize (10): Staples® Digital Imaging Package.
Register for a chance to win with promotion code 56040 by using the form on this page or by calling 1-800-346-6090.
It's that easy. And, as our gift to you, receive 100 bonus miles* just for registering. You'll also earn up to 20 miles per dollar spent at ShopOnePass. With over 30 retailers to choose from, perfect gifts are easy to find. For convenience, value and a chance to win, visit ShopOnePass for the holidays.

* Limit one entry and one 100-mile reward per person per OnePass number. "

______
P.S. Yes, the Delta "Dash to the Gate" game works for 10,000 miles, and even though it points you to a slow off-site website hosted by an Irvine CA ISP, it is legit, and you will get a Delta email the next day confirming it. I have not yet seen it posted, but it is a good (!) deal. Only posting of find of it is in flyertalk.com, and it is not linked thru the DL website.

Thanks for the kind reminder. However, I think I might have just lost a few thousand Delta Skymiles to expirations. Anyone have experience in talking Delta into reinstating those? I know it's not much to lose, but when you combine that with the Dash to the gate bonus, I am really close to a free ticket. Thanks in advance.

LAX

Thanks for starting the thread, Sggolf. One question, though. Does the credit have to be posted on the account (and therefore can be viewed online) by year's end, or would it be all right to simply have the transaction dated on or before December 31? If the former, it may already be too late now. I am thinking about Delta in particular. Does anyone have any experience here? Any comments appreciated.


I was wondering the same thing. Two of my family members have miles expiring 12/31/20004 and IDine miles usually post the beginning of the following month so in this case January. Will this activity be enough to keep the accounts active? :confused:

the advice to login and see when your miles expire is not so easy. I haven't found any of my accounts to display when the miles are going to expire, and I haven't found any that give you the date of your last activity if it is more than a year ago. I have been able to call the plan and get the expiration date.

the advice to login and see when your miles expire is not so easy.
Here's an easy way to track miles so they don't expire. Create a spreadsheet with three columns: Program name, person (if you're using family members) and expiration date.

Then sort the list by expiration date (closest expiration at top) and you'll immediately see what programs need attention.

I exclude airlines I fly at least annually since those miles will never expire. I'm usually left with airlines I don't fly every three years. I extend them with iDine and I don't worry about them for another three years.

Hi All! This is my first post. :)

I'm requesting clarification. Several airlines state they will zero your mileage account after 3 years of inactivity--I always thought this meant you had to take a flight to keep those miles active. In fact, I have miles that will expire w/ UA in March unless (as their letter to me indicated) I took a flight with them. Am I missing some small print somewhere? Will adding Idine miles to that account really keep it active?

Hi All! This is my first post. :)

I'm requesting clarification. Several airlines state they will zero your mileage account after 3 years of inactivity--I always thought this meant you had to take a flight to keep those miles active. In fact, I have miles that will expire w/ UA in March unless (as their letter to me indicated) I took a flight with them. Am I missing some small print somewhere? Will adding Idine miles to that account really keep it active?

Yes idine will keep them active - any activity on the account will keep them active for another 3 years. Most of the airlines also have internet shopping programs that allow you to buy something online from an online merchant and get miles. A great way to extend the miles. It takes about 6-8 weeks sometimes for the miles to show up, so make sure that you do it with enough time for them to get there before the miles disappear. If you buy something online to extend the miles by the end of the year, they may not show up in time. I do not know what would happen in that instance, but it may mean a lot of time on the phone.

Hi All! This is my first post. :)

I'm requesting clarification. Several airlines state they will zero your mileage account after 3 years of inactivity--I always thought this meant you had to take a flight to keep those miles active. In fact, I have miles that will expire w/ UA in March unless (as their letter to me indicated) I took a flight with them. Am I missing some small print somewhere? Will adding Idine miles to that account really keep it active?

United will extend your expiration by any activity, I believe. I helped someone get their miles extended by some sort of 500 miles promotional bonus (no flight was booked or taken).

United is strict about cancelling your miles if they expire. If they expire, you can buy them back for 1 year after expiration. They will also reinstate the miles if you request credit for missing miles within 1 year of expiration and within 1 year that the missing mile activity (say car rental, flight, bonus, etc) was done.

Hello all,

I'm new to the forums and signed up specifically to see if someone could offer any advice or comments on the expired miles issue.

I have been a freq flyer Medallion Member with Delta for over 15 years, since my college days. I have flown only with Delta, always, because there was the incentive of racking up the miles. And over the years, with all the trips I made here and there, I racked up quite a few of them. I accumulated 50,000 miles - enough for a trip to Europe or South America. Yay, right?

Not exactly. Yesterday I went into my account to check my balance and redeem the miles for a certificate good to take me to South America because at last there were enough miles to take me there, and was shocked to discover that around 40,000 of my miles EXPIRED JUST THE DAY BEFORE, leaving a piddly 11,000 or so in my account!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was so upset, I started crying. There went my trip to South America.

There also went my allegiance to Delta. Now I'm just gonna fly with whoever gives me the best price. Chances are, it will be AirTran or America West or some such discount airline. It AIN'T gonna be Delta ...

Delta, if one of your reps is reading this, it's things like this that are making you lose your flyers.

I'm not going to ask Delta to re-instate my miles, they have corporate policies that change all the time and they can do whatever the heck they want, they're entitled to preserve their bottom line and if I somehow overlooked one of their "gotchas" that's just my tough luck, I guess, and I will just have to deal with it and move on. I just want to know why this happened after all this time, and why they didn't just take ALL of my miles? They might as well have; I can't even use what's left for an upgrade.

Thank you for reading this.

Sincerely,
Mary Maloof

[snip] Maybe this should be a sticky, to remind ourselves: Thought this would be a nice reminder to start logging into your dormant airline and hotel accounts to see when your miles expire. [snip]

As much as you don't want to call them, you could at least try. ALL the airlines (except I think Continental) have a policy of miles expiring if there is no activity for 3 years. You might have had some very old miles that were in place before the expiration policy and that may be why they didn't take them away. Recently I saw that my daughter's miles in Delta would expire at the end of Dec 2004, so I attached her number to one of my credit cards and had a meal at an IDine restaurant, so now that are good until Dec 2007. I did the same with my account even though I still had a year - so that it would easy to remember that they both expire in 2007. In the old days, nothing extended miles, and they just expired in 3 years, so the change was actually a positive one. Sorry that you weren't paying attention, but try calling Delta and see if anything could be done. If you "leave" Delta, where will you go? American and United have the same policy.

Hi there,

Thanks very much for the advice. I will call Delta and see what can be done, although I doubt they will be helpful - after all, I was the one who wasn't paying attention to the rules changing or whatever and I don't want to whine and stamp my feet when it was probably my bad anyway. That said, I'm fairly sure I've flown in the past 3 years. Definitely 3-4 air trips since 9/11. But then, that still puts me in the "danger zone."

As for whom I'm flying from now on, I'm just going to go with whoever gives me the cheapest fare, charge it on my American Express and get points which I can then redeem for whatever, without having to constantly check and make sure my miles aren't going to go poof, and without having to worry about being "gotcha'ed" any more.

Again, I'm not expecting Delta to re-instate my miles or anything; if I overlooked something, fine, it's my bad ... whatever, I'll deal with it and move on. I just wanted to find out what I might have done "wrong" so I'll have a clearer picture of what happened and how to avoid falling into the same trap moving forward. I'm glad that at least now I know about this forum so that I can arm myself with the knowledge I need in the future.

Thank you,
Mary


As much as you don't want to call them, you could at least try. ALL the airlines (except I think Continental) have a policy of miles expiring if there is no activity for 3 years. You might have had some very old miles that were in place before the expiration policy and that may be why they didn't take them away. Recently I saw that my daughter's miles in Delta would expire at the end of Dec 2004, so I attached her number to one of my credit cards and had a meal at an IDine restaurant, so now that are good until Dec 2007. I did the same with my account even though I still had a year - so that it would easy to remember that they both expire in 2007. In the old days, nothing extended miles, and they just expired in 3 years, so the change was actually a positive one. Sorry that you weren't paying attention, but try calling Delta and see if anything could be done. If you "leave" Delta, where will you go? American and United have the same policy.

Wouldn't it be nice if you discover some flight didn't get posted and you have met the 36 month rule after all. Good luck. Check back on credit cards to see if you have a flight charged! Let us know.

Wouldn't it be nice if you discover some flight didn't get posted and you have met the 36 month rule after all. Good luck. Check back on credit cards to see if you have a flight charged! Let us know.


Thanks, yeah, I sure will ... I certainly don't want to let all those miles go poof if I can possibly do something about it. I promise to keep you posted.

Best,
Mary

Welcome to FT!
Now not to disappoint you but I wouldn't call you a true frequent flier when you haven't flown in three years.
Anyway, Delta mostly matches fares on rival carriers if you book at least a week in advance, so hopefully you'll still fly on Delta!

I wish I had read your reminder post 4 weeks ago as I just lost 12K on AA... Sigh...

great advice regarding setting up a spreadsheet to track miles/exp dates. but i can't seem to find the exp date on the continental website.

Continental: rules state that they have the option of cancelling miles after 18 months of no activity but there are many reports that this rule is not enforced.

FWIW, I had a OnePass account with no activity for five years (last flight was August 30 or 31, 1998, then nothing until a flight on August 30, 2003... the timing was a pure coincidence)... to my amazement, the miles were still there.

does anyone know if I can covert hotel points from husband's account to my NWA account?? The reason is becos' I have not have any activity on my NWA account for sometime. Thanks.

Or does redeeming miles for magazines considered activity and will help extend expiration??

For those of you with Hyatt Gold Passport and some recent stays i.e. stay within 3 months and it was posted as points, call Gold Passport customer service and ask them to convert one of the lower point ones to Miles.

I was a few credits short of WN reward ticket and 4-5 credits were about to expire so I asked for a few conversions from Hyatt and they did not transfer in time so the credits disappeared but once the Hyatt transfer posted, they posted with the date of the stay and my credits got revived and free ticket issued. I value the Hyatt points more but since I had a number of FFN, though I would do it...

Mary