AyanO

OK. Got a frantic phone call from my friend today, who basically said, "All my miles are GONE, they took my MILES". He was refering to getting online to check his BA statement and seeing his 90,000+ miles that we had been saving for a South American getaway were now at ZERO.
What I know is that he probably had not signed into his online account in at least 2-3 years, and his last activity was probably in summer 2001 when Diners-BA-American AA transfers were able to be done with no penalty.
Now this is also important to me, as since i've had no qualifying activity on my BA account in probably also 3 years, but I do logon just to check every once in a while. I dont want my 92,000 miles to disappear cause of inactivity.
Anyone have an answer?

Thanks in Advance

aristoph

Bad news, I'm afraid. This is from the EC T&C:

"12.3 If a Member has not earned or redeemed Mileage for 36 consecutive months, all Mileage that has accrued to that date will expire."

BAW845_Matt

Book a flight... any flight ASAP otherwise you're going to lose them all. A cheap economy LHR - MAN will do.

Raffles

Easy - simply have your next hotel stay (Hilton, Starwood, Radisson, Marriott etc) or car hire (Avis, Hertz) credit to your BA account. Or transfer a few SPG or Priority Club miles. Or do something with i-dine. Or open a US BA credit card with a miles bonus. Or put your BA number against your next AA flight.

If worst comes to worse, book yourself the cheapest redemption ticket you can find - which will be a UK to Europe ticket at 13,000 miles. This will obviously cost you miles but will give you another three years grace. This also saves you worrying about whether your car hire / hotel / AA flight etc will post in time.

But do it quickly, because those miles will go - see the recent thread about an American who tried to sue BA for his missing 115,000 miles!

aristoph

No good just booking a flight, you have to take it to earn the mileage to avoid losing the miles. Much better to do the hotel stay thing, as suggested. And I don't know if there's anything you can do about it if they've already taken them? Wiser heads in this forum can tell us.

Markonen

One way at 6500 miles should be cheaper!

CT-UK

The LHR-MAN option will not be that great when the OP has to fly from NYC first

rent a car or stay at a hotel and dump the miles to BA.

BAW845_Matt

My bad... engage brain before typing on keyboard...!

Raffles

Surely, though, if you don't take the flight then you don't get your miles back? I reckon this counts as a redemption.

Anyway, I'm not sure what the cheapest AA reward is, but you can always use your BA Miles to book one of those.

(By the way, this may be very sad, but I have markers in my electronic diary reminding me when my hotel points are going to expire. Starwood seems to require a stay per year, Hilton is happy with a small Amex points transfer. Priority Club never expire, bless 'em.)

AyanO

Hey everyone thanks for the quick response. Gosh I hate to have to make the call to my buddy later today to tell him, yep they are all gone.. As for myself, I just logged in, but I cant see when the last activity I had was, so i'll be calling up and then signingup with i-dine and finding a pub in NYC with some Bass or NewCastle on tap and have a pint or two.

I guess i'll be going on my next vacation alone, ouch 90,000 plus miles gone, that really has to hurt, especially when that was your biggest balance of all your programs!

Again thanks for the answer and thus a warning to myself!

AyanO

Oh yeah, I just saw someone say to throw my BA account number in next time I take an AA flight. This confuses me, so are you saying the next time I flew from NYC to Chicago, instead of using my AA number I can give my BA number to get credit?? I thought I had to actually fly on BA to earn flight miles, and since I live stateside my chances to fly BA are rather limited..

Again thanks in Advance

CT-UK

Yep you can earn miles on any AA flight except for US-UK on AA metal.

Infact you can earn your miles on any OW flights.

skippythelizard

Beware with iDine, their T&Cs say that it takes up to 60 days for miles to post. So find out for certain what your 3-year date is before going this route.

I've usually gotten my iDine miles to post at around 30 days, but I've been pretty infrequent until recently. I recently moved and have a great local establishment (that I'd frequent regardless) which participates at 5 miles/$ for unlimited visits. I've got a number of rewards showing up at the iDine web site which haven't made it to my BA account yet ... it's been about 45 days.

Overall iDine is a nice option for earning a few miles here and there ... it's just not quick. By contrast, if you're flying AA domestically any time soon, just give them your BA number and it'll post inside of a week. (Only 25% miles for most economy fares, but it'll count as activity on your account.) BA also partners with Alaska and America West if you're doing any flying on them.

BigLar

Have you tried calling BA and, well, pleading with them? Try any story about illness in family, just slipped my mind, etc. They might be willing to bend --- I seem to recall other posts where the poster was able to get his miles back along with a firm promise to never let it happen again, etc. The absolute worst they can do is say no, and where are you then? Right where you are now.

As an aside, I have two phone lines --- one in my name, one in my wife's name. MCI dutifully pumps a few miles every month into our respective accounts, so they should never expire, for all practical purposes. Saves me wondering when my last flight was and so on.

Might want to set up some little automatic thing where you send flowers to your friend, or mom, or whatever, every year, and bill it to your affinity card. Little stuff like that can same a lot of fretting over the years.

Just my tuppence worth.

dnw

Then of course there is the guy that made a (single) post the other day about sueing BA in the small claims court for cancelling his miles in a very similar situation.

He claimed that he had stayed in a partner hotel during that time (but didn't stay around long enough to answer my question of had he had actually tried to earn BA miles during the stay, I suspect he did not...) BA refunded his miles before it got to court so I guess we'll never know.