I need ways to keep my Airline miles from expiring

In the past I have done things like go to certain websites and watched "informercials" to get 250 miles posted into my account. This would keep miles from expiring for 18 months or 3 years. Is there a list or website somewhere of things to do to keep my miles from expiring?

I need to keep my Northwest, Delta, United, and American accounts from expiring.

I'm sure others with more expertise will chime in, but you can play LiveSearchClub games, and use the tickets you win to buy FF miles. I believe those deposits will be the activity you need to keep the accounts active.

Or, take a few flights?

Do you have 4 different debit/credit cards? If so, the simplest may be to register each one in a different airline's dining program and having a cup of coffee with each one once a year. (In the current credit environment, it's also a good way to keep old otherwise-unused credit cards from being cancelled by the issuer!)

Do you stay in hotels or rent cars? If so, do you earn miles or points? If miles, then earn toward the ailrines you want to not expire at least once a year each. (For the airlines you care less about, choose the shortest/cheapest hotel stays or car rentals on which you'd earn the least anyway. For expiration holdoff, you don't care as much how much you earn as just that you earn something.) If points, do a minimum amount of points transfer to each airline once a year.

Using just these two techniques, I keep Delta, Northwest, and BA alive without ever flying them. (DL and NW have dining programs, BA no longer does.) And if I didn't have a Chase Rewards Plus card (that you can no longer apply for) that earns 4+ UA miles at standalone gas stations, grocery stores, and drug stores, I'd be using only these above two techniques to keep UA alive too.

All four of those airlines have online "malls" that give you miles for shopping online:

http://www.nwa.com/mall
http://www.skymilesshopping.com/
http://mponlinemall.com/
https://www.aadvantageeshopping.com/

Do some Christmas shopping online and you're set.

Most airlines also allow you to donate miles. So if you have a few hundred miles above a cutoff for a ticket, you can use a few of those every year to keep your account alive.

Safeway stores have a deal with UAL where you get 125 miles when you spend $250 using your club card. Keeps the ole UAL miles account active. And, you still get the miles for purchasing with your credit card. ^

NW miles don't expire (i'm sure DL will change that soon) and others you can redeem for magazines/newspapers for 650 mi. or less.

How long does it take the Shopping Mall miles to post? My daughter bought something about 2-3 weeks ago and is still waiting for the miles to post to US Air. The item she bought is a Christmas gift - what if she returns it? -- if the miles have already posted will they stay? Thanks for your help. (First she bought a magazine subscription - "Budget Travel" - and received confirmation, but the miles didn't post. After a month we checked into it and found the magazine was "out of stock." Now time is running out ....)

I gave up on NW shopping miles 'cause they never posted.

Cashback from FatWallet.com or whatever seems to work better.

I don't know for US Air, but AA miles post within about 2 months (every time). So you have to be patient, but I received every single mile for shopping through their mall.

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do things like sine up for points.com, the idine network, play for small awards on club.live.com, opinion place surveys, find an invitation to erewards

www.hotspex.com

Take some quick surveys, and you can choose how you want the points to convert to miles (via points.com).

Advantages over other methods:

1. 100% free
2. Posting is very fast (usually within a few days)
3. No minimum number of points required to convert
4. Unlike emiles and erewards, you don't have to dedicate your account to one airline.

How long do you have before your accounts expire? That will depend on what you do to earn the miles. If they're fast approaching, the quickest way would be to purchase miles or make a redemption for something. Dining for Miles would be an easy way as well if you don't have any hotel stays, car rentals, etc., coming up. Or, you could sign up for e-rewards or e-miles, too. They make take a bit longer to accumulate miles but are fairly painless, however like Jazzop mentions, you can only dump miles into a single account - so e-rewards could be NWA and e-miles for Delta, for instance.

livesearchclub takes quite a long time to earn miles. not worth it in my opinion.