oenophilist

I just tried to combine my US Airways Dividend Miles and AAdvantage accounts, as I did a ton of travel on US Airways in the past. The person said that because I hadn't used US Airways in awhile, that my account was "dormant" and that I have lost all of my lifetime miles. This is ALOT of miles that I flew between 1993 and 2005. They said there is nothing they can do, yet I just checked my account merely 6 months ago and it wasn't "dormant". What is going on? Have I now lost all my mileage history from U.S. Airways? No one notified me that this would happen, and the AA Rep blamed US Airways.

reeg2

At least 5 years ago, US Airways had a policy for mileage expiration after 18 months with non-activity. This closely mirrors an AA policy that is quite a bit older. Basically, if you don't use, you lose.

oenophilist

The issue here isn't mileage expiration, it is lifetime miles. I never knew there was a lifetime miles expiration. Upon further research, apparently this isn't new:

http://elliott.org/what/a-lifetime-o...d-in-a-second/

So much for loyalty. Airline consolidation may be the worst thing to ever happen to the U.S. airline industry.

JDiver

But, this pre-existed the airlines' merger.

oenophilist

No, it pre-existed the combining of systems. Not necessarily the merger.

And for the record, I was able to access my U.S. Airways account earlier this year.

I had never heard of lifetime miles expiring. It is outrageous.

imapilotaz

My father had a similar experience. He had 500,000+ miles at US (pre HP merger). Needless to say none of the lifetime miles moved over to AA, which would have put him very close to the 5MM lifetime number.

How lifetime miles expire is beyond me.

sjpmurph01

The ability for US lifetime miles to be forfeited due to account inactivity most certainly pre-dates the merger (unless you're referring to HP+US).

A quick look at the google finds discussions around this going back at least as far as 2007.

I'm sorry you find yourself in this situation, but there's unfortunately not much you'll be able to do. I don't recall ever seeing someone post a success story about getting their lifetime miles back, but that doesn't mean you can't ask.

MSPeconomist

I assume that you mean forfeited, not fortified.

sjpmurph01

Ha... fixed. If only there was a way to fortify one's lifetime miles... that would solve the whole problem.

IADCAflyer

I find this ironic. You bemoan a lack of loyalty, yet its you who hadn't bothered to lift a finger's worth of loyalty in nearly 10 years.

Loyalty indeed!

LovePrunes

Here's a nicer way to say this, OP:

you haven't flown any in 10 years on US, so you're account mileage (and history of lifetime miles) were forfeited. If you have flown in the past 10 years but not on US, then it's not really that loyal to US, and if you haven't flown an ANYONE in the past 10 years then you're really not losing much since you're not really a frequent flyer.

Under US rules long before the merger with AA, simply logging into your account wouldn't preserve your miles. You MIGHT be able to see your account info, but that doesn't mean they changed the rules. when your account was zeroed out, there was nothing to transfer to AA, but that's not the airlines' fault, that's really yours. sorry you lost your mileage history though.

oenophilist

You couldn't be more wrong.

It is the airline's fault and ONLY the airline's fault. Again, lifetime miles are lifetime miles. I'm quite aware that regular miles expire. They chose to make accounts dormant. After 2005 I flew US Airways often but credited things to United before US Airways moved out of Star Alliance. I am not complaining about any lost of redeemable miles (which is what most threads of the past refer to). I am complaining about the loss of the lifetime miles recognition.

I cannot believe that people are actually defending the airline for this. Then again, yes I can, there are a lot of apologists here.

IADCAflyer

If a person didn't bother to fly on my airline for 10 years or shop at my store for 10 years or use my credit card for 10 years, I'd probably purge them from my system as well (as I would be entitled to do).

sdsearch

But one could also look at it is:
In which case, if you had realized it could work that way, you should looked into what was necessary to keep your account active.

(It may say "lifetime miles", but it doesn't say "lifetime account", does it?)

I know I'm a bit paranoid about my lifetime status, to the point that I wonder for example whether terms like "4 paid segments per year on this airline's metal" apply to lifetime status or not (until/unless it's proven or announced that they don't).

You sound like you assumed that no matter what you did, your lifetime miles/status couldn't go away. IMHO that was a bad assumption, and I came to that conclusion long before hearing your story (or anyone else's similar story).

In the world of points and miles (and lifetime miles), "assuming" can be a very dangerous thing to do, especially if you don't go through the exercise of thinking of it from the other side's (in this case the airline's) perspective.

arollins

I'm not too familiar with UA, *A program, so please bear with me. From 2005 you did fly US, but credited to UA. Where are the lifetime miles for those flight credited to? UA, US? If UA, then as far as US is concerned, after some time and lack of activity, you are not a FF member of their program and you account expires. Granted, other programs do offer you the opportunity to re-activate the miles, and I believe US did so as well. However, you choose not to place activity in your account. How many miles were lost, just curious.

For what is worth, just to share your pain, I have 3 certificates from TWA for a free round trip anywhere they fly that I never got around to use. I also have 1 from EAL, and 1 from ATA as well.