I received an email in the last few days warning me that US Air dividend miles were about to expire. They weren't, in fact - the account had activity less than six months ago. Turned out the email was an effort to sell me magazine subscriptions. Might your father have received such an email?

It's not Hyatt - they don't expire points at all. My last Hyatt activity was 2006 until I stayed at one last week.

In the hotel space, I agree it's most likely HH. I want to say my wife has a few dormant Marriott points and no recent activity...I don't recall them being aggressive about canceling points. Don't know about SPG since we use their credit card and therefore will never approach dormancy...

hyatt t&c (bold emphasis mine)....

Good Luck OP, hope your dad get his miles back.

Please read the OP again.

In practice they dont.

I can tell you by experiences, Hyatt and Marriott dont purge your account balance despite you may be inactive for several years.

HH would, so as SPG.

got a notification from united about my expiring miles. here's the email title.

"Your 11478 award miles will expire soon"

obviously i don't fly them alot.

I made up an Excel spreadsheet with all the Points and Miles programs I belong to as well as the account numbers and the passwords and gave it to my points/miles savvy brother. Everyone should do this, whether they are senior or not. You never know when you will get hit by a bus, heaven forbid. I would roll over in my grave if I thought all my hard earned miles went to waste or expired!

There's a current thread in the AC forum about a lady whose husband died and AC wants to charge her 1 cent per mile to transfer them to her name. Shame on them!

i agree....i have a few thousand marriott points that have been lying around since forever....i think the last time i stayed with them was in 2007....

my point is simply that they are completely within their rights to do so since they mention it in the t&c....

Hi,

I'm Detective Elliot Stabler from Law & Order SVU. We have a specialist who can access your hard drive and find old emails and even the deleted ones to recover information. All you have to do is commit a felony and let us investigate you...

Maybe you COULD find a IT geek that can really do that! (no, not commit the crime part...)

If not, the other idea --as silly as some may think it sounds--could be to simply compose the same letter outlining the plight to each and every rewards program out there... yeah... to all the major airlines and hotels.

Then email or send it off in the mail and tell them that as his son, you really want to help him NOT let those miles or points expire. (BTW, did he say he was about to lose miles or points? That may help you narrow it down since points are generally only on hotel accts and miles are on airlines)

Some airlines or hotels may write back saying, "no it wasn't us," but one eventually will tell you/him in writing what to do to keep them and that letter will be dated. If you compose yours well enough, they may even give you a small grace period to fix the problem because they now understand that you had trouble discovering who it was to begin with. They might feel that this is a renewed sense of loyalty in itself--at least by a family member, namely you.

I know your pain. But if you have to get these points, you gotta do whatever it takes.

Lastly, consider trying to find his cards somewhere in the house. I know people of my parent's generation carried those things. Some here do, but I never carry airline cards no more.

Good luck!

MM

it would be important to know which programs the op's father is a member of....that could narrow things down....

indeed, but in case it's still hard to figure out, sending to all might work if nec.

heck, you might even get some sort of sympathy 100 mile bonus out of it from ones he wasnt even a member of! hahaha