How do we fight the new expiration rules?
 

This story has a summary of the new ff mileage expiration rules. It says DL is down to 12 months.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/b...s/15906097.htm

While the report claims some frequent flyers will welcome the new rules, I suspect they will be in the deep minority. Many of us have "primary" ff programs and "secondary" programs that we use only occasionally. These quick expirations mean we have to waste time paying attention to expiration dates, and make it less attractive to fly airlines that we use only occasionally.

I wonder if some sort of group protest by flyertalk members might get some of the program managers to reverse their decisions. The "three year rule" really seems quite fair, and it seems downright greedy to shorten that time period. I also think it can be harmful for the airlines themselves, as it will make it hard to cultivate new customers (like college students who fly only a couple of times a year).

Maybe I am misunderstanding this, but as far as I can see, the new rules don't say that miles expire in 12 months. They just say you have to have some activity in your account once every 12 months. If that is correct, it is a trivial matter to put some miles into your account by some method once a year - credit cards, dining, flowers, grocery store shopping, and many others that are posted on this board regularly.

Now, if they went to a system where the miles actually expired within 12 months after they were earned, I would definitely be disturbed.

That is correct -- but you have to REMEMBER to take such action (like OK, I'll take AA miles on this car rental). Also, in my case, I have ff accounts for my children. It is MUCH more difficult for kids to earn miles without flying and, as you might imagine, there are airlines that they don't fly every year. It will be a true burden making sure they don't lose their mileage balances if the airlines reduce the inactivity window to 12 months.

Unless something has changed in the last day or two, I believe Delta's new policy is TWO years, not one. USAir recently cut the expiration period to 18 months, but I think it's a rolling 18 months, which can be much more restrictive than merely "within a calendar 18-month period." I don't know all the policies of all the programs, but the tightest time period for points expiration I know about is either USAir's 18 months (if indeed it's a rolling period) or Starwood's requirement that the account be active every calendar year.

Interestingly, Starwood's 12 month policy has evidently been in place from the beginning, or at least for a long time, and it's very rarely the focus of complaints, whereas DL and USAir are under criticism because they've changed their policies to more restrictive ones.

Just another devaluation of miles by broke airlines.

As far a fighting back, I doubt there is anything effective to be done, beyond a class action lawsuit which I suspect is not going to happen.

As for me, I will continue and strengthen my policy of not flying Delta and US Air, and will continue to try hard to consolidate my mile earning activities to AA and UAL. It is becoming less and less worthwhile to use a variety of airlines--if you care about FF miles.

Yeah, with the various multi-airline alliances these days, that SHOULD be true. But the problem I've run into is that the airlines are VERY reluctant to make free seats available to their partner airlines. For instance, I concentrated my Star Alliance mileage credits on US. Repeatedly, though, when I needed a ff ticket on UA, UA's website showed award availability when US couldn't get me a UA seat. So now I also maintain a UA ff account (funded largely by the absurd generosity of the credit card sign-up offers).

Obviously, the airlines can legally adopt any expiration day they want (provided they give adequate notice). But these are LOYALTY programs, and I would think that a signal that the most frequent flyers (flyertalkers) are unhappy with the changes might curtail this unfortunate new trend.

One has to ask how much airlines want to (or should want to) cultivate this type of customer through frequent flyer programs. Loyalty, absent elite status which such a person is unlikely to have, is transitory in this business. Becoming the favorite airline of a college student won't mean much when the student becomes a more frequent traveler (probably based in a different city, surely with different travel patterns and financial cosiderations) several years later. Offering them benefits, if they fly enough in three years to earn an award, is probably not a cost-effective strategy. After all, a frequent flyer program means what its name says.

Well, you could take that approach. In a sense, perhaps the airlines are returning the program to its roots: a FREQUENT flyer program.

But for many years, the airlines have deemed it profitable to also allow semi-frequent travellers to participate. Given the low costs involved (heck, they sure make it hard from the "average joe" to redeem his miles), I would think it would STILL be profitable to cultivate "average" travellers. Otherwise, grandma and grandpa (and Joe College Student) have every incentive to have zero brand loyalty, and just book the lowest fare or more convenient schedule (which probably would be on a low-cost-carrier with a poor ff program).

Also, as noted, the new rules hurt frequent flyers who only occasionally fly an airline. I would think the currently-disfavored airline would want to "leave the door open" for more business from such frequent travellers currently using another supplier.

As real world anecdotal evidence, I always try to avoid WN in large part due to their rolling 2 year credit expiration. Most of my business would probably go to AA anyway, but I might otherwise take 2-3 WN trips a year. But even 3 RT's per year on WN, and I will never earn a single free flight.

How to fight
 

Until I am directly informed by DL of any change, I am operating based on 2-year expiration. Should the 1-year rule comes to past, I hope we can flood DL's email inbox until it shuts down - that is if we know what their email address is.

Just curious, would this thread be better served if it is moved to DL?

IMHO, using miles whether on partners or otherwise, for flights in the US is not a good use of the miles. Using them for International J or F is where they should be used to get good value. For example, I just book two seats LAX ORD for $240 each. Get around 3.5K miles and don't have to beg for seats.

As to the idea that the airlines can adopt any experiation date they want, that raises a lot of interesting legal points, but it is not as clear as glass. As to FTers opinions concerning the airlines, they are in a race to the bottom and, will be very surprized, when, in the not so distant future, miles programs lose their marketing power. Remember when all you could find in the markets were big, beautiful, tasteless Red Delicious apples. Now, we have varieties that actually taste good. And, the Red Delicious growers have mostly ripped out their over bred, mealy apple producing tress.

Delta and U.S. Air's changes make me nervous, but the big problem that I
have is figuring out and keeping track of expirations, even when they
don't change.


Starwood - I've totally failed to figure out what the Starwood policy really is.
I cashed out all points but one back in 2004, but my one point still sits there
every time I log in. Phone calls and even a guess by Starwood Lurker were unable to tell me what the policy really is.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=175753


U.S. Air - When they made the change, it wasn't clear if it was retroactive. This still isn't clear to me. Miles for another family member disappeared
under the old rules, but the account wasn't closed even though they said
it would be.

Delta - This thread refers to a reporter (who checked his/her sources?) thinking the miles expire in one year. The truth appears to be two years. But I have a family member who had "old" miles which weren't supposed to expire, but we received a Sep 05 letter that they would be converted to
Skymiles in Jan '07 and presumably be valid for 3 years. Now that is
probably 2 years, but a "Talkmail" advice sent out yesterday implies those
miles might expire promptly in January.

Hilton - They have a one year rule, but a majority of transactions on the
web site now post without dates.


:(


kudos to American for clearly posting the expiration date on the web site summary. Here's keeping my fingers crossed that United and American keep their 3 year policy.

I think it is 2 year even though my account is still showing 3 years.

I haven't fly DL for years since they implement change fee. Once a year, I fly CO and put mile in DL account to keep it alive.

So just set up reminders or a recurring payment so it will impact thoise accounts. For example, I have my monthly T-mobile hotspot fee mileage credit credited to American, so for 12 months I won't have to worry about some activity in the account.

I also have one of the rental car companies credit mileage to an account on an airline for which I've accrued a decent number of miles, but don;t fly that frequently any more. By having the car rental mileage credited to that account, I know that some activity will occur at least a couple of time a year in the account.

You could also set up a monthly or quarterly reminder in Outlook to remind you to make an online purchase using a program's mall.

All said and done -- mileage expiration is a LOT better than it used to be, when they really truly expired 3 years after being earned, whether you had subsequent account activity or not.

True, but that was a loser of a policy for the airlines, and if they had stuck by it, the programs would be much smaller than they are today. The non-flying revenue wouldn't have taken off, and LCCs would have been able to hurt them even more than they already have.

I think they're trying to fix something that wasn't broken here. U.S. Airways clearly wants to use its 18 months to prod people into doing its bidding to keep the miles going (I received an e-mail to that effect). I think what it'll actually do is to get the "slow accumulators" and infrequent travelers to give up on that idea and buy based solely on price.