I wonder if people could share the easiest ways to extend expiration on airline miles. I'm interested in USAir, American (yes, they'll be combined), United, Delta (although I guess they don't expire), Airtran, and Southwest.

By "easiest" I mean hopefully something that can be done with a few mouseclicks and with minimum expense.

I know, for example, that I can transfer UR points to Southwest, but that is in 1K increments.

I can sign up for dining programs but this means linking a credit card to each program, going to a restaurant that participates, and buying a glass of water for each one and tipping the barkeep a buck.

Points.com transfers would be great, if there isn't a minimum. I don't care if, say, I have to transfer 10 points to get 1, I'd rather do that than transfer 10,000 to get 9,000.

People did:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...-expiring.html

Buy a song on iTunes through the shopping portal of your program.

Here is the master US thread. I buy iTunes gift cards through my kids' accounts every 17 months if we haven't flown in that time.

Yesterday I converted 60 Best Buy Points to 14 Alaska miles.
Points.com

That extended my expiration date by 2 years or so.

I completely concur with points.com and Best Buy points. You can go through the App on Facebook and get points for poll questions. Poll questions are worth 25 points most of the time.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...-accounts.html

You can exchange 10 Best Buy points for 2 miles on Alaska, American, United, and 4 miles on USAirways, plus a bunch more like Aeroplan, Frontier, and Virgin America. I don't see Airtran or Southwest, though 2 questions and 50 points let you reset all the others. It doesn't even cost anything. Well, except Facebook "privacy".

For UA & AA, if you have their main card, downgrade to the no annual fee version that gives 1 mile/$2 and use it once a year.

For SPG members, transfer 2.5K points to your airline.