Originally Posted by
lavalyn
It makes a lot more sense trying to wipe miles off accounts and the books simply to get customers that don't add value off the books. I'm sorry, the person with 5000 miles in their account from one promo three years ago should not represent a continued liability on the books for whatever value that is... $10? And one that would never get wiped off until the death of that person.
My understanding is that the miles aren't counted as a contingent liability (at least by most airlines) until they mount to the level that they can be redeemed for something. In other words, the accounts with a few thousand orphan miles (and there may be many of them) don't add to the contingent liability.
Wiping them off as a "tidiness" exercise may make some sense, but probably not for a number of years (5? 7?) and even then you'd need to do a cost/benefit analysis since, outside of tidiness, there would be little true benefit in doing so.