Yep, I got this email too. As a Delta Platinum Medallion, I don't have much use for NW miles (or any other airline for that matter). But I have been using e-rewards to "top up" relatively dormant mileage accounts before they expire. Fortunately, I just burned 25 e-rewards dollars to keep my wife's US Airways account active - good thing I didn't wait until a few weeks before the actual miles expiration date. And of course NW is one of the few remaining programs that still has a 3-year expiration/dormant account rule as opposed to the more typical 18 month or 2-year rule for most airlines. And my wife doesn't even have an NW account.

I guess I just need to focus on topping up all my airline accounts to an award level, then burn the miles and closing the accounts, keeping one account per alliance. Although from a website usage standpoint, there is an advantage to keeping these accounts (at least Continental for sure).

Looking at my redemption history, I have two rewards each to US Airways and Continental - both used to keep my accounts or my wife's account active. And I did two deposits to Delta, one just to burn some $, and the other to get me some activity for a bonus that Delta was running.

I just dumped $50 in e-rewards currency into Hilton (at least I can use those to transfer to other programs). I have about $17 remaining, so I think I'll top this up to $25, get some NW miles, and close down my account.

In my secure list of online accounts, I just noticed that I have an old e-rewards account. I just logged in to this account and find that it must have been an old direct e-rewards invite. All airline options are listed with the new 6-month gap between redemptions. Based on the address and email address I used for this account, I opened it sometime before 2002. Time to close my new account, update my contact information for this old account (I think I'll update to a different current email address then the one for my new account), and keep earning e-rewards with flexibility. ^