NW will be merged into Delta later this year, so if you are talking about award travel in 2010, you have to consider what Delta will be offereing at that time.

It sounds like your son will have 49k in his NW account after traveling this year. If he doesn't have a Delta FF account, create one, link his NW account to his Delta account and earn 500 bonus miles. These will post to his Delta account and can be used in combination with his NW account.

You can also earn some relatively cheap NW miles by ordering items from their shopping mall under their current promotion. Read this thread http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/north...erks-mall.html to get some ideas. This promo expires at the end of June.

Delta and NW both have other promotions right now that encourage customers to use their partners. You might be able to take advantage of these also to build your son's Delta and NW accounts. They are http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...r22-jun22.html and http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/north...ile-miles.html. You need to register for both of these promos to earn the bonus miles. They also expire in June.

While these four ideas may be a little bit more of a hassle than transferring miles from account to account, you should be able to generate miles at a lower cost per mile. Hope this helps.

For those who need a free DL activity:
 

I found this activity at the above thread. Thanks OP.

For those who need a free ^ DL activity:

1. Register for the above Partner Activity. One of the qualifying activities is swapping miles from another airline on points.com., so it appears to qualify as an official DL 'activity.' Obviously you can't or would not if you could (bad exchange rate) transfer some NW miles to your DL account since linking began.

2. No swappable miles? No problem. :D Open a new Alaska Airlines FF account and they give you instant credit for 500 miles. ^ ^

3. Sign up for your free points.com account and swap your 500 AS miles for 80 DL miles. points.com will give you a first timer 100 mile bonus. ^

4. Presto, free 180 Skypiles and a Skymiles activity will be on your DL account. ^

Rolling Expiration Cancelled WP Miles transferred to SM
 

Thanks to everyone for suggestions when my transferred NW Worldperks miles were "expired" after transfer into my Delta Skymiles.

I received this message today from Delta:
.............................................
"We regret you were unaware of the new rolling expiration date associated
with the SkyMiles program. We try to ensure our members are aware of
these guidelines by providing them on our website at delta.com/skymiles,
as well as listing the expiration date on account summary statements
following any account activity. As a one time exception we will
reinstate your expired miles. Once the miles have been reinstated your
new expiration date will be June 30, 2009, however, once you have taken
your upcoming trip in the middle of June your expiration date will be
extended to June 30, 2011. Your information has to be forwarded to our
liaison for assistance, please allow 5-7 business days for processing."
................................................

Does anyone see any benefit of me transferring these miles back into my NW Wordperks account, if only to stall the expiration date further? We are talking about a paltry 15K miles here... but I also have an AmEx MR account with some hefty points, so they may come in handy down the road.

I am a bit confused :)

If the last activity on my WorldPerks is May 2009, and then I transfer into Delta later this fall, would the new Skymiles expiration date be May 2011 (assuming no Skymiles activity).

In other words, are others' miles expiring right away because the WorldPerks last activity was over 2 years old?

The key is the DELTA Skymiles non-bonus activity. Look on your SkyMiles account before transferring into it--there will be an expiration date in most cases; that expiration date will not change when NW miles are transferred in. In some cases of zero mileage balance, there will be no expiration date, and a new two-year expiration date will be created when miles are transferred in (to be safe, though, I'd transfer something really small (e.g., 5 miles) to test it first).

Good going, Barbi! I think Delta was very reasonable with you.

My opinion is not to transfer any miles in any direction until you are ready to use them, or until the merger is down the road. My understanding is you can transfer miles back and forth anytime you want. So my plan is to check what I can do with Worldperks or Skymiles, and get the best deal on a flight, then transfer the mileage if I need to.

Anyone else see it differently?

Not really, but you can rescue about-to-expire DL miles from impending expiration by moving them to NW.

What I gather from reading other posts, please chip in if you know more info:

WP miles don't have an expire date, SM do. If you have some SM about to expire in a month, park them all over in your WP account. For the next 6 months or so they should be safe.

In October or so when they do the final merge, I don't feel they will be able to tell which are old miles or new miles in your WP account. I think they will just take the pool of your WP miles and put them all in your SM account and start the 24 month timer on the whole batch. You thus end up stretching the expire date on your older SM.

At least I hope it will work this way.

I hope so to, but I'll be very careful when watching how the account merger is implemented.

Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts and advice! Yes, I really think Delta acted reasonably by reinstating my miles. And luckily, I'm about to fly with them in a few weeks, which will extend my expiration date by two years.

This has really made me aware of how much I need to pay more attention to my mileage accounts -- big thanks!

Now that this is out...
 

[Nevermind.]

Stop. Think.
 

Bringing the conversation that's been going on offline, because of the lingering uncertainty up to this point...

Don't take the bait. Don't sell out for 500 miles. Don't do Delta's work for them.

The good sages in this and other threads have been helping people with all the fine points, when the better thing is to stop, think, take a couple of steps back and look at the bigger picture.

Makes me think of lemmings, showers, the clink as the gate locks behind.

Think. And if it comes to you, please leave it be, personally and in this thread. "'Tis a far, far better thing..."

I think I get it now, Firewind... Thanks again for your help!

Well, it looks like DL has taken action due to the confusing expiration policies that resulted in accelerated expiration. All three of the accounts of family members I linked with Worldperks accounts received the above posting of 1 non-bonus mile with the title Expiration Extension.

They've also updated the terms, for the better:
https://www.delta.com/skymiles/manag...unts/index.jsp

OK, earlier this year we transferred 20+K NW miles from my wife's account to my NW account, giving me an additional 40+ K (20K + 20K) NW miles. Can I now transfer 30K of my NW miles to my wife's account and get 60K NW miles added to her account? Paying the transfer fee, of course.