Retired Pilot’s “Dream Trip” Scrubbed When 30 Years’ Worth of Miles Are Voided Days Before Booking
Jeff Edwards September 18, 2017
A retired aviator’s plan to exchange reward miles he collected from years of travel on a once-in-a-lifetime European grand tour was surprised to learn his points had expired due to inactivity.
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) prescribes that professional pilots should have “good hearing, good vision and good color perception.” Unfortunately, newly retired captain Michael Lipp still missed the fine print on the terms of his Aeroplan rewards account and he says that it cost him the dream trip he had been planning for years.
According to a CTV News report, Lipp only learned that the more than 100,000 Aeroplan reward miles he had saved throughout his career had expired due to inactivity when he attempted to redeem the reward points for the planned European vacation. While retirement afforded more free time for the former aviator, he would only later learn there was a hidden cost to being able to stay close to home rather than traveling for work – the rewards he had cultivated for more than three decades were invalidated after not traveling during the first 12 months of his golden years.
“I was looking forward to my trip,” Lipp explained to Toronto CTV affiliate. “We were very disappointed. I would like to invite Aeroplan to step forward and do the right thing.”
Aeorplan officials, however, don’t sound especially likely to bend the rules on Lipp’s account. “His miles expired due to 12 months of inactivity,” spokesperson Shauna Marshall said firmly. “We are unable to reinstate the member’s miles.”
Marshall explained that members are required to earn at least one qualifying mile each year in order to avoid losing their previously collected rewards miles. She added that Aeroplan sends email alerts to members holding accounts that are close to being declared inactive.
Lipp insists that he received no such notice. “I had been getting the monthly statements regularly for years and years and years so there was really no reason why I wouldn’t get the notice of an account expiry,” he told CTV’s Pat Foran.
Foran points out that according to Aeroplan policy, Lipp could retrieve his voided points by paying a $30 fee plus one cent per expired mile. If Lipp chose to go this route, he says it would cost him approximately $1030.00 to reclaim his lost reward miles.
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If this is a typo, and it s/b 1M miles for a 'dream trip" then maybe.....even so....a retired airline pilot (if that is a true statement)~ Now he/she sounds like just another whiner.
Sympathy is defined as feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune. Leave it to your average FT member to lack that toward others. Should the pilot have known? Sure. But come on. Why does the average FTer's response to such situations have to ooze with spite, callousness, and aloofness?
Wow, what a bunch of jerky, no empathy replies here. I had 40,000 UA miles saved for a drop-everything LAX-HNL fare because my brother in HNL had Cancer. My main airline is DL so I rarely flew UA anymore. I would get these once-yearly "Mags for Miles" e-mail-outs, buy him a subscription to something and that kept the miles going. Last year I didn't get the e-mail for some reason, so of course I forgot about it and UA yanked the miles. (My brother passed in April.) Sorry but I think it's a b.s. move to expire miles - especially in these days of "Frequent Spender Programs". It would be one thing if they were BIS miles and they wanted you to keep being a 'frequent flyer' to keep them up, but not in this day and age where most of your 'miles' are from CC offers, partner offers etc. The "You can buy them back from us at extortionate rates" is b.s., too.
The whole story is a bit puzzling. Only 100,000 miles after 30 years of saving them? And what airline employee doesn't know to check whether they expire or not? Also, I have an offer for 60,000 Southwest miles for applying for a credit card before Oct. 1 and then using it. 100,000 miles doesn't seem like enough to do such a fantastic trip. Maybe those miles are harder to accrue and are worth more at redemption? If not, as someone mentioned, is 100,000 a typo? I do feel bad for him, but if they make an exception for him, they really should make an exception for everyone else who's lost miles. Read the fine print is all I can suggest.
Why does he need miles? No flight benefits after 30 years? Also I am sorry but 100k miles is nothing nowadays. Not enough for a dream trip. Also can't believe it took him 30 years to accrue 100k !