Strategy for redepositing miles?
 

I was saving my LH miles for a European vacation w/ an old friend. He was transferred to a new city last Spring and was unable to take extended time off. I had about 23,000 miles expiring in March/April of 2002 so I called MM customer service to see what my options were. The agent suggested I claim a 10K & 20K award to 'hold the expiring miles' which could then be redeposited if necessary. I have those awards in hand and they expire April 4, 2003. (Purely by coincidence, I'm also flying LH for the first time in 24 months, ATL > BUD via FRA, on April 5th.)

What expiration date will the 30K miles have if I am able to redeposit them? My remaining miles show no specific expiration date on my current online account statement but I assume they are subject to the normal 36 month time frame. Would that mean that any redeposited miles would have another 36 months since miles can be "redeemed for an award within 36 months from date of credit to the mileage account"? That seems overly generous. Also, is there anything specific I should or shouldn't do in talking to MM to get the miles from the two awards redeposited?

Combining these 30K miles w/ the 22K+ in my account now and the minimum 12K from the upcoming April trip (w/o any new promotion bonus), I could be in good shape for the near future.

Barring any of that, should I just use the 20K award for an upgrade (or will it expire one day before I can get it used?) and try to get the 10K award redeposited? (I'd hate to use it on the FRA > BUD segment).

My overall dealings w/ LH have been very favorable but my TransAtlantic travel (all on LH nicely) has been sporadic, so I'm not familair w/ the MM nuances such as redepositing. I couldn't find a FT post that dealt with anything like this.

Thanks in advance for any pointers on any of the above options.

As I mentioned, I'm traveling April 5th ATL > FRA. I checked the online timetable on Sunday afternoon and it showed NO Saturday ATL > FRA flight. I confirmed today that it *IS* indeed a LH flight and, when I checked the online timetable again, it did show up.

So now I'm back to where I was - either trying to redeposit the miles or just use the 20K award I have in hand for one transatlantic upgrade.

I'll try to get through to MM on Wednesday since I'm iced in here in Dallas. Thanks again for any pointers in advance.

***Edited to fix UBB error.

[This message has been edited by TarHeel (edited 02-25-2003).]

A quick reply to detail what I found out in case others are searching for similar info in the future. My 2 awards were redeposited into my account but there were the following restrictions:
1) the vouchers had to be in the hands of MM before the day they expired.
2) the 30K miles could only be redeposited if they were being used to then claim a higher award (in this case I redeposited the 30K and claimed a 50K award).
3) the award certificates were useless after the expiration date in the sense that I couldn't request an upgrade (before the expiration date) on a flight that wouldn't take place until after the expiration date. The award flight had to be completed by the expiration date.

Hope that helps someone down the road.