If you use iDine/Rewards Network for each of these airlines (doesn't work for LCCs, but most majors have an affiliated dining program), you will have another reminder, which will take care of the lack of the airline's reminder:

You will need 12 dines in a calendar year (can be a cheap coffee or coke each!) to keep "elite"/"tier 1" status (the status that gives you 10 miles per $) with each dining program. In the fall, they send you an email telling you how many more dines you need to maintain that.

They'll also send you emails about dining bonuses, and at least once or twice a year with each airline there should be some "easy" bonus that'll entice you to use that dining program at least briefly.

I don't see how anyone who chases iDine bonuses would have a problem with miles expiring (at those airlines that are affiliated with iDine/RN), as long as they live in (or frequently visit) a populated enough area for there to be a reasonable choice of participating places to at least occasionally eat at. The act of remembering to check which airline has the best bonuses at iDine/RN every couple months, and the desire to check to see if those dining miles posted, takes the place of having to worry about whether your miles ever expire, since your dining activity in these partner programs is producing a slow but fairly steady trickle of miles into each of your programs.

This year I participated in the 25 miles/$ AA bonus, a 4 dines = 1k miles AA bonus, a 250 miles per dine AA bonus, a double miles NW bonus (right now), and am working on a 25k UA bonus miles promo, and I bet I've forgotten a few (and not mentioned the ones with Priority Club since that's a hotel chain where points never expire anyway). I don't collect CO, DL, or US, but that's the only reason I didn't try for any bonuses with those.

(That leaves only Southwest and Frontier, that I collect with, that I can't trickle miles into this way. But it's a lot easier worrying about expiration at two airlines than over half a dozen!)

ohhh this type of situation usually makes the Marathon Man burn in fury but instead I calmly digress. I manage the accounts of many family members and have even prompted several friends to join up here and there. I know the rules of a few of them are wild, like Singapore Airlines, which expires whole chunks of your miles on some sliding scale, regardless of activity. yup, if some lot of miles reaches a certain date, BOOM! It's gone! (You can write in to ask for a 6 month extention and they even have a fee for it, i think). Ok, so I told my brother, who would be flying them a lot for business this year to and from Asia, to join United instead. he did that but he told me that it's not really that easy to use UA miles to upgrade on Singapore and besides, he does not get the bonuses when he does fly in a different class. So now he's a member of both. The reason this is crucial goes with the words of other posters in here who, like me, tried to keep their memberships down to a minimum.

All of this mile expiration crap is WHY I have been constantly harping about keeping all records, planning to earn and then using before losing, and making it so your miles are available in useable chunks (like bringing up a balance of say 9,200 miles to 10k so if need be, it can be useful in more ways). It is also why I have reduced the number of mileage accounts I have and those with say, 200 miles left on them after redeeming my last award will no longer be a focus for me. Interestingly, US and DL are among those, although I still have miles on NWA and UAL, which are partners.

Delta even sent me a card TELLING me I still had 1200 or so miles left and that they wanted me to know about their magazine redemption offers. I have done those before and I did it again. (Note they send you a card hoping you will sign up for extended subscriptions for only $1 each mag but if you read the really fine print it's one of those new marketing scams where YOU have to call THEM to cancel or else they bill you some huge cost to auto-renew)

Point is? ALL of these miles and marketing gigs are legalized scams. The airlines dont WANT people to fly free--or sure, back in the day, it seemed a good idea, but now they are totally backed up against a wall and they MUST find as many ways as they can imagine to make the game more and more hard to work with for the regular human. All these schemes are this way and yet WE play within them because, money asside, we have a trait in us that MUST find a way and MUST win. It's like watching a rich person play blackjack with $10,000 bets. He doesn't really care about the money itself as much as the 'system' or the ability to psych out the dealer or beat the house.

Face it mates, we have that quality in us and we will thusly find a way. It totally sucks what they are doing but hey, it will get worse, so mark my words and act now. From what I gather, US and DL are both part of a magazine for mile gig. I believe a deduction equates "activity" as well as a mile addition. Grab a new subscriotion every 12 months and you are all set. Oh sure, ya gotta llike check that balance once and a while, but hey, it's your miles! How many times do you check your bank balance online in between office emails and sips of the morning coffee?

MM

some of the magazine, newspaper deals for miles are really good. Wall St. Journal comes to mind from United. Perhaps they gave us a longer than usual subscription for 1,200 UA miles, but it has run for 4 months so far.

Just spoke to Mr. Sheffield at marketing and he stated that they have not received very many emails or mail complaining about the change only a few phone calls. He also stated that they do not count the phone calls on the mail complaints. I am firing off a complaint, who's next?

I think the question is sort of a misnomer. You really shouldn't be travelling on that many airline programs. Stick to one alliance group and consolidate the miles you earn into one account. This gives you the benefit of better status, getting full bonuses on mileage, better award availability and it makes the question in point a non issue.

Use up the miles in the accounts that you don't use. For those 'secondary' airlines that you don't fly every year, does it really matter? You don't get any mileage bonus and it will probably take you the better part of a decade to get anything from it. Give the miles to charity and go with an alliance, like SkyTeam, that give you the ability to travel on multiple carriers and still keep your miles in one place.

Get used to expiration rules.
3 words: Sarbanes, Oxley, bankruptcy.
Translation: clean up unfunded liabilities on the balance sheet.
Look for other programs to follow suit, becausethe airline programs have been the pacesetters.

All that said, back OT: information is power, and how we fight it is to share information on what it takes to prevent expiration and the opportunities to do so. This could be a wiki.

FT kept my 49,547 orphaned Delta miles from going poof December 31 by showing me how to make them become 50,297 with a new expiration date of 12-31-2008.
for example

You are correct. Effective Dec. 31, 2006, the Delta policy is two years.

I wish they would expire every 6 months. It is too hard to find available seating and most hard core FTers will find a way to prevent their miles from expiring while everyone elses expire.

LOL-- I figure YOU'RE not a family man...
MM

9 Month old, 4 year old and wife. Lots of miles and lots of family.

...or someone who may make more money than most people and thusly can travel more, or also happens to have done tons of business travel and possibly does not own his own small business or none at all??...

My wife and 4 month old cannot fly everywhere with our current limited income as I am temporarily the stay at home dad and we decided on that instead of day care.

I am doing only small projects in my field to keep busy until our next adjustment in life and work comes to fruition. Should I therefore sacrifice and LOSE my ability to BE a mileage guy just cuz these have been times of 'less income' for our family than not? While I am not working "full time" for some company that flies me on trips, etc, and we don't have all the monetary means we have had at other periods in our lives, time ticks on and we get closer to expiry dates. What if we get wealthier again but when the dust settles all our miles are gone anyway?

Now, in our cases we have credit cards and/or can do other valid FF activity to keep the accounts going, but surely people get my point. Your jest is such that only an elite set of people would be able to maintain miledum and that just is not a good idea. Perhaps there IS such a program out there but I don't think it's the one all these airlines who sell economy tickets have in mind. For first class maybe, but not for everyone else.

On the other hand, I know a little bit about how the actions masses can have a negative affect on the activities of serious users...
Here in Boston, we have 4 seasons and over the years I have heard increasing complaints about both traffic and weather. I think those people should all move to Florida and let me have more space on the highway in the winter, which I happen to enjoy in this area. So maybe we both joke about our own perfect world visions.

MM

AGREED !

Even if you have 2 or more "secondary" mileage accounts.

Use your kids or other family members FF accounts when doing the above that JerryFF suggests so that their accounts remain active.

Now if one can't remember to do the above, perhaps one should purchase a calendar (I bet there is a site that will earn miles for doing so) @:-)

I have about 15 FF accounts...all of them either have gotten to an award level or will...so it is worth it. I focus on certain ailrines accounts but many promos are airline specific and I use them all...

I also manage account for the family...about 5 accoutns/family member.

This policy does not make me happy...though I doubt I will loose many miles becuase of it.

I don't see the big deal with this one. Unused airline miles create a liability for the airline. If one can't figure out how to create "account activity" once every two years, one either doesn't care, or doesn't have enough miles to care about.

Your points are very well made. I try to keep up with our accounts and also am letting the accounts with tiny balances go by the wayside. Tried to keep Singapore going, but finally gave up on that.

The game isn't as much fun as it used to be.