NickB

AAUI, if the miles were acquired exclusively via non-flying, then they can be extended by non-flying activity (as long as the activity concerned earns miles). If they include miles included via flying, then all miles earned until the last earning flight can only be extended by (revenue) flying (or earning miles via the FB Amex card in France or the NL).

orbitmic

Thanks. Bad news but useful. All the miles were accrued by flying.

AJCNL

I have 141000 miles which will expire on 30 June 2023. I'm not going to be doing any paid travel, and no longer have a FB linked CC, so I guess the only way to stop these expiring is to book an award ticket. Do I need to use the full number of miles, or is an award booking for a lesser amount enough to stop the rest expiring? And is it a question of just booking before the expiry date, or is it flying before that date.
Thanks in advance

NickB

AIUI, that won't do it: you need to earn miles, not just spend. Spending does not keep miles alive. If you book an award for travel after expiry of the miles, the booking will survive the expiry of the miles but you won't be able to cancel it as, as soon as the miles will hit your account after being refunded following the cancellation, they will automatically expire.

AJCNL

As I suspected. Thanks for the confirmation!

croomes

This has just happened to me. I had to cancel a miles booking as my husband has had a stroke and can’t travel. My miles went back but they took all the expiring miles away.
i have searched their terms and conditions for this but can’t find where it actually says they can do this? The telephone agent never mentioned it to me either

irishguy28

Flying Blue T&Cs, §1.2.9

Neither redeeming miles for an award, nor later cancelling that award, counts as either an "Overall Extending Activity" or a "Partial Extending Activity". If it did, it would mean that miles could be extended indefinitely, by making a booking and later cancelling the booking (upon payment of the cancellation fee). No such loophole exists; to extend miles, there has to be an Extending Activity.

Because there was no Overall Extending Activity recorded on the account (again: making an award booking is not an Extending Activity; cancelling an award booking is not an Extending Activity), the miles that were "tied" to the Flying Blue award ticket were now past their normal expiry date. As such, once the ticket was cancelled, those miles were lost

You may have had a case for some kind of leniency or discretion if you pointed out the reason for the cancellation, but of course without realising that the miles were already expired and would not be returned, you probably did not think to make such a case. That said, I am not sure that the phone agent could actually intervene in a way that would have preserved the miles.

I'm not entirely sure that that information would be immediately available to the telephone agent.

A "change" is handled now as a cancellation and the making of a new booking - so even if you had requested to change the date of travel to some point in the future, that of itself would also not have saved these miles.

It might not be a bad idea to send a brief note to FB customer service, indicating the reason why the cancellation was medically necessary, and seeing if they could make any gesture regarding the expired miles.

Good luck, and please let us know if you request this (and what they say).

croomes

Thanks for that. I have been directed to their “claims” portal so I’ll give it a go. I have to say I was unaware of this otherwise I would have blagged it a lot more, but will certainly expIain it fully and see how I get on.