Miles/Points that Do and Don't Expire
 

I thought it would be nice to have a post where we could keep track of all the various miles, rewards, and points programs and when/if their miles/points expire (and if so, how quickly) - I'm sure we all have many, many rewards memberships, and sometimes these things are hard to keep track of. I'll start off, and feel free to add (I can always edit the post to make additions). I'd especially appreciate additions for other airlines, as I'm very loyal to Delta (due to a ridiculous number of unfortunate experiences on literally every other airline)

Non-Expiring Points/Miles
-Skymiles

Expiring (+ activity that "resets" expiration date)
-Starwood Starpoints (1 year, resettable by staying at a property)
-Marriott (1 year?)
-Amtrak Guest Rewards (3(?), resettable by any activity)
-Wyndham Rewards (18 months resettable by any activity; 4 years "hard" expiration)
-AA (18 months, resettable by any activity)
-UA (18 months, resettable by any activity)
-LAN (3 years "hard" expiration)

You need to be more specific about expiring. In some cases, it's just expiring with no activity, in other cases it's "hard expiration" which activity can't defer.

For an extreme example of that WyndhamRewards has two types of expiration: 18 months resettable by any activity, but 4 years "hard expiration" that can't be avoided.

Choice Privileges has only "hard" expiration, 2.00 to 2.99 years after you earn the points (on Dec 30 of two years from when you earn them). (Choice says "Dec 31", but they do it early in the morning of Dec 31, so it's much safer to think of it as "Dec 30"! :eek:)

Amtrak Guest Rewards (AGR) is changing soon. But up to now, it hasn't been reset by non-paid-Amtrak-travel activity. So people transferred points in, planning to use them for something, and found they expired almost immediately! Up to now, the only way to avoid Amtrak expiration as a rare Amtrak passenger has been to have the AGR credit card (from Chase up to now, but it may move to a different bank soon).

So a chart that simply says how long the expiration is will be misleading, IMHO. It needs an explanation of what (if anything) resets which (if there are multiple kinds) of expiration.

In airlines, an example of this complication is LAN: LAN kms expire three years after you earn them, not resettable by most activity, but all your kms reset for another three years if you take a paid LAN flight that earns LAN kms.

AA is 18 months resettable by any activity.
UA is 18 months resettable by any activity.

Btw, please note that "activity" in the context of expiration always means earning or redeeming in that program. One person over in the AA/US forum who had lifetime miles at US and then never flew US for years assumed that logging into their account occasionally counted as "activity", for the purpose of maintaining their account, but it didn't, and right before US Dividend Miles merged into AA AAdvantage miles, that person's US account was purged for inactivity, along with their lifetime miles.

Heh. I actually literally *just* got the e-mail from Amtrak about changes in their guest rewards program - the shift towards revenue based miles and all that. Their miles still expire, though now they count activity as "earning and redeeming miles" but that's really particularly helpful in my opinion.

I agree that any kind of chart/post like this would need to be detailed about the kind of activity that prevents or doesn't prevent expiration; that's why I'm hoping others post and contribute, as I tend to stick very loyally to a few select programs and know their rules, but am unfamiliar with the rules of those programs with which I stay once every couple of years.

Thanks for your contribution - I'm editing the above post to add what you said.

Starwood - I know dining at a participating Starwood restaurant over a certain dollar amount ($10? without tax or tip) keeps your account alive, but it appears that the T&C's now say any redemption or earnings activity keeps an account alive.

Perhaps someone else will come up with a with a better candidate, but I nominate Frontier Airlines for most absurd expiration requirement (6 months). This apparently will occur even though the airline can't program its own website to give a customer the correct expiration date (it typically shows an expiration date 6 months from the current date no matter when your last activity occurred).

I'm starting to see the value of getting a credit card for most hotel brands - spending counts as "activity" no matter how miniscule and that way your miles never expire. That's why I'm planning on getting one of the Hilton cards (the one without the fee) so that my Hilton points never expire. I also checked out Starwood's dining program, but there's about four qualifying restaurants in the entire city of Philadelphia, so unfortunately that option is probably out (I have their credit card at the moment, but that probably won't last forever).

Frontier Airlines - I have actually never heard of them (possibly for good reason - that sounds like a ridiculous requirement).

Just to be clear, Starwood doesn't have the standard iDine program that many airlines have. You just need to eat at one of their on-property restaurants and make sure that the restaurant will let you charge your dining costs to a room at the hotel. If those criteria are met and you spend enough (I think it's $10 w/o tax or tip), then you can have the restaurant or the front desk submit the activity to Starwood for points. I'm not familiar with all of the Starwood properties in Philadelphia, but I would think there are more than 4 properties that have qualifying restaurants, so you may have more options than you think.

But wouldn't you have to be staying at the hotel to charge the dining costs to a room? (Sorry for the confusion - if you're staying at the hotel anyway that'd already count as activity). I just found out that Starwood has a dining program to begin with, and I admit, it's confusing. As to Starwood properties in Philly, I just checked and there's 9 in the city itself, and not all have restaurants (Philly is a weird city)

No, the point is that you can earn Starpoints from spending in *some* Starwood hotel restaurants even if you're not staying there. The rule about whether you could do a room charge at that restaurant or not is a way to distinguish restaurants that are part of the hotel and those that operate out of space leased from the hotel. In at least some jurisdictions, not that purchases of alcohol would not count for the $10 or earn any points.

SQ redeemable miles have a hard expiration date, IIRC three years after they were earned/credited to the account.

Somewhat OT, but several years ago BestBuy had a frequent buyer program with points expiring at the end of the calendar year in which they were earned. I haven't purchased anything there since then, so I don't know whether there's still a program with the same rules.

This is the type of thing that would work best as a wikipost, so all info can be seen in one place.

I've taken the liberty to create the wiki, and copied in the data from the 1st post, with a mild reformat, corrected the data for marriott, added reset data for SPG, and added BA avios

Thanks very much! I started the thread to be helpful to as many people as possible, so making this a wiki is a great way to do so. :) Since I"m new to the forum I'm not sure: am I/anyone allowed to edit the wiki, or is that just for moderators?

Ah, ok, makes sense. And BestBuy still does have that frequent buyer program and yes, their points expire - thank you for reminding me! I have it and I totally forgot about it and i probably have some points there that will expire soon.

You need to have been a member for 90 days AND have a post count of 90+.

I didn't realise you didn't have edit rights when I thought about the wiki.

That's okay; 90 days isn't that long and I"m sure by that time I'll have more than 90 posts. In the meantime, I hope others will edit the wiki - I posted all I knew to it, so contributions by others who have been around longer will probably be more helpful anyway.

Not quite; it's resettable with a paid LAN flight, though not with other activity. (Btw, I don't know whether a LAN partner flight credited to LAN would count, or whether it actually has to be a LAN flight number credit to LAN.)

I updated the wiki to clarify that.