I occasionally stay at Hilton properties, maybe once every 2 years. I don't dislike Hilton, but I have made Starwood my primary hotel program.

As it happens, I will be attending a conference that is being held at a Hilton. So today I attempted to log into my Hilton Honors account to plan my stay, only to discover that my account has been deactivated, and my point balance (all 5,000 of them) were forfeited. Now I don't care about the points, but having my account deactivated is inconvenient and annoying.

Does it cost them so much to maintain my account on the chance I might want to stay at a Hilton property? I know disk storage is expensive, but does it cost them so much that they can't keep my account active for more than 12 months?

Well never mind, I made a reservation at the Westin down the street from the conference hotel, and Hilton lost an opportunity to convert a Starwood customer to their brand.

Does it really make sense for these programs to deactivate accounts, or is this just an antiquated policy from the days when disk storage was really expensive?

moderators - intended to post in Travelbuzz, please move if necessary

I believe this has nothing to do with disk storage capacity and everything to do with the fact that these miles are a liability on the airlines financial statements, and expiring them results in a paper profit. Anything having to do with a profit is at a premium with the airlines, thus some of them even moved a few years ago to shorten the expiration from 36 months to 18. Of course, when an account is serving its purpose (i.e. is current and generates loyalty) the airline is happy top carry that liability, but after a certain time has passed the airline has no expectation of loyalty and is better off expiring these miles.

Now you make a good point that hotels should be subject to similar motivations, but the fact is that hotels tend to be more privately held while (essentially all) airlines are public companies, thus hotels pay less attention to paper profits and more to actual profits. Go figure.

I get what you're saying -- it's not about the points you lost, it's about the hassle of having to create a new account if you go for more than a year between stays. This has happened to me with Hilton as well. And guess what? I don't stay at Hiltons anymore.

I log about 50-70 nights a year in hotels and sometimes they come in "clusters" at a particular chain, depending on where I'm traveling. I might not stay at a particular chain for 18 months, and then have 20 stays at that chain in the span of a few months. Hilton has lost its chance at those 20 stays because I'm sick of having my account deleted.

Hyatt never seems to do this, btw. I've gone for years between stays and my account (and points) are still there.

I hate this too. I don't know why they insist on doing this. Hilton deactivated my account, but I called them up and they reactivated it, but I lost all my points. I haven't flown United in years, but my account is still there.

The same thing happened to me with Wyndham Rewards. They deleted my account despite the fact that I had recently stayed at a property (2 months ago), but chose to earn airline miles due to a promotion. Very bad business policy in my opinion. If you are a business, you want to encourage loyalty no matter how infrequently your customer purchases your product.

It is a nuisance and it's also funny how different chains/companies are more fussy than others about deactivation (though most are fairly consistent about losing the points or miles). I recently found out I still had an active Goldpoints plus account - with points still sitting in it - albeit not many. The last time I earned with them was probably 7 years ago, when I frequently stayed at a Country Inn & Suites for recurring work trips.

Yet Hilton was real quick to jump on me about closing my Silver account when the 365 day mark or whatever was coming up - notwithstanding the fact I had several stays the year prior.

Oddly, my wife found out by accident that her United MP account - last used c. 1997 - was still on file and "open" (no points left of course but still had her accrued lifetime UA miles balance recorded). This happened a few months ago when we both signed up for the Chase UA debit card on our joint checking account. Chase has a weird way of not asking what MP account to link the card to and no one at Chase understanding your question when you call to verify what MP number it's linked to (long rant about this somewhere in the UA forum, I think). Anyway ended up seeing the MP # referenced on the statement and lo and behold, it was her old account. All it took was a quick email & address update online and she was good to go.

i never understood why they did this....my brother is a member of pretty much every loyalty program out there....but there are many programs that he may use once a year or once in a couple of years....he says its very frustrating to find out that his account has been deactivated just because he hasn't used it in a year or so....

I think you have answered the question. These are loyalty programs, they are not intended to reward past behavior, but rather to influence future purchases. If you are promiscuous and only patronize a particular vendor infrequently the sponsor clearly sees that the program has not had the intended effect.

Don't misunderstand, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with using the programs in a way that doesn't infuence your choices. Nonetheless, I understand why the programs choose to purge individuals who are not engaged with their brand because that's the primary justification for the programs.

Sometimes I wait to post a reply because I sense that someone else may be better at expressing a certain idea. MIA expressed my thoughts better than I could have myself.
I am very new to the game, and don't really have enough experience yet.
Both my preferred airline and hotel chain have expiring points. Account deactivation is new to me. I am not a big fan of Priceline; but if a deactivated account lost me points, I'd figure that hotel-chain loyalty program was not worth it...and hello Priceline.

Well, one could debate whether they are "loyalty" programs or "rewards" programs. The latter is how they are usually marketed. If they are "rewards" programs, they are rewarding past behavior.

In any case, it doesn't promote future loyalty when my account is deactivated. Here's a very possible scenario: I was a Hilton Diamond, but then took 13 months off from travel because of a job change. I take a new job involving heavy travel. I try to log into my Hilton account and poof, it's gone. Well, screw Hilton -- I'll go to SPG or whoever.

Deleting unused points after some period of time is understandable. I can even understand deleting long-inactive accounts. But it's a dumb policy to deactivate accounts after a relatively short period of time. Closing down an account after 5 or 10 years of inactivity, I can understand. 1 year, no.

I think they are both, it's a difference in perspective. To the sponsor they are loyalty programs, to us they are rewards.

I agree that closing an elite member's account after only one year is foolish. I would expect the dormant lifetime to vary with the history, a so-called "soft-landing". To continue with the Hilton example, a base account might expire after a year, Silver after two years, Gold after three, and Diamond after four years of inactivity.

It's not only loyalty programs which do this. I just called to make a doctor appointment, and I am no longer listed in the patient database. I was sure I had been there "a couple years ago", but it turns out it was 2006 .

i completely get where you are coming from....but there is a different side to this discussion as well....

like i said, my brother won't stick with a program because he just picks the cheapest flight....so for 10 different trips if he finds 10 different airlines that offer the cheapest ticket then he flies with them....he joins every program so that he would get the miles....he makes 2-3 international roundtrips a year so he just keeps adding the miles up....

earlier this year he was able to get enough miles on a particular airline (he takes 1 or 2 international flights with them a year) to redeem a one way business class ticket from london to new york....it probably took him 4-5 years to do this but if he hadn't joined the program then he wouldn't have been able to get this....

i stick to 3 loyalty programs & have the highest tiers in them because of the amount i travel....i may be able to get more miles in a couple of months in all 3 of them than my brother could get in 5 years....but after those 5 years he may have enough miles in each program to redeem some tickets....i see sense in that logic....

1yr is ludicrous and a slap in the face.

I.e.

You stay at a Marriott enough to earn Platinum (75 days/stays). At a decent corp rate of $100 (plus tax) that's $7500. If you're in their rewards pgm, that's 10pts/$. That's 75,000 pts. Depending on where you stay that could be as many as 10 free nights at a Category 1 Marriott hotel. Say you use the Marriott CC, that's another 5pts/$ or a grand total of 112,500pts. That doesn't include the 25% more pts once you hit gold elite(50 nights), or the 20% you get once you hit silver(10 nights). The bonus is roughly 14,250 pts. That's 126,750. Add in the 500 pts you'd for receive for checking in for your stay after being reaching Gold Elite. Using 3 night stays, that's 8 * 500 miles after you reach 50 nights.

That's ~18 FREE nights, not counting special pt earning incentives given...that are ripped away from you simply b/c it's been ONE YEAR???

I'm not sure how it's OK to screw one of their best customers in as little as 365 days. I couldn't care less if they are private or public....it's a policy/rule/etc that is totally idiotic.

I used Marriott as my example simply b/c I'm familiar w/ their pgm. I don't know for sure if they will deactivate within 1yr. But using it to extrapolate since a few blogs I've read rate Marriott pts fairly low on the "hotel pts quality" totem pole...I figure the example only gets worse w/ other properties.

Starwood has closed my account twice. I guess they want to make sure, I won't stay with them again. And that's exactly what I am doing.

how long did you have between stays before starwood closed your account????