Aug 28, 2019, 10:20 am
Last edit by: WineCountryUA
United Airlines Announces MileagePlus Miles Never Expire
Airline continues to make improvements to its award-winning MileagePlus loyalty program
CHICAGO, Aug. 28, 2019
-- United Airlines announced that effective immediately, MileagePlus award miles never expire, giving members a lifetime to use miles on flights, experiences, hotels and more.
"We want to demonstrate to our members that we are committing to them for the long-haul and giving customers a lifetime to use miles is an exceptionally meaningful benefit," said Luc Bondar, vice president of loyalty and president of MileagePlus at United. "Our MileagePlus program provides customers more ways to earn and use miles than any other U.S. airline. More customers used miles to book award trips in 2018 than in any year before, and we expect with today's announcement that even more will use miles to travel the world in the years to come."
Airline continues to make improvements to its award-winning MileagePlus loyalty program
CHICAGO, Aug. 28, 2019
-- United Airlines announced that effective immediately, MileagePlus award miles never expire, giving members a lifetime to use miles on flights, experiences, hotels and more.
"We want to demonstrate to our members that we are committing to them for the long-haul and giving customers a lifetime to use miles is an exceptionally meaningful benefit," said Luc Bondar, vice president of loyalty and president of MileagePlus at United. "Our MileagePlus program provides customers more ways to earn and use miles than any other U.S. airline. More customers used miles to book award trips in 2018 than in any year before, and we expect with today's announcement that even more will use miles to travel the world in the years to come."
United announces "MileagePlus Miles Never Expire" (effective immediately 28 Aug 2019)
Aug 28, 2019, 11:37 pm
#106
Join Date: Sep 2018
Location: STL - KHH
Programs: AAdvantage Platinum, Hilton Gold, IHG Platinum Elite, Wyndham Rewards Gold
Posts: 26
I haven't flown on United since 2015, so I guess now with miles never expiring I don't have to worry about that 18 month expiration threshold. I always booked rental cars through United just to keep my UA MP account active and earn some MP points, though I like using Dollar and Hertz a lot as well. I wish I could've extended my China Airlines Dynasty Flyer, which the oldest mileage expires after 3 years with no way to extend them. I lost over 22k miles at CI because of that, and now I just send those CI flight miles to DL since they are both part of Skyteam. Now UA doing dynamic pricing like DL, I don't think the miles are worth much and will more likely devalue in the coming years. Its going to be harder to redeem mileage and not get ripped off, such as using 95k miles to fly from ORD to GCM!?!
Aug 29, 2019, 1:43 am
#108
Join Date: May 2010
Location: AVP & PEK
Programs: UA 1K 1.9MM
Posts: 6,362
But overall this is a token gesture by United.
A nice touch, will limited benefit.
They'll re-introduce mileage expiration before the next decade is over, is my prediction.
Aug 29, 2019, 1:45 am
#109
Moderator: United Airlines
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: SFO
Programs: UA Plat 1.997MM, Hyatt Discoverist, Marriott Plat/LT Gold, Hilton Silver, IHG Plat
Posts: 66,859
Many with greater than 50-100K miles and some with much more have posted in this thread
Reinstatement of Expired MileagePlus Miles [Consolidated]
and this classic
1.1 million miles expired 6 wks ago
Aug 29, 2019, 5:48 am
#110
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: mountains of western NC
Programs: Life, Love and Laughter
Posts: 8,539
Yes. I have 150K miles and I fly United about once every two years or do. This program change definitely makes things easier for me, as I didn't have any easy way to extend expiration of my UA miles
Aug 29, 2019, 6:44 am
#111
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: Bucks County
Programs: UAL GS & Million Miler; Delta Lifetime Gold; Hilton Diamond; Marriott Platinum; Legion Etrangere
Posts: 1,609
For some reason United only chose to notify me of this exciting news at 10:03 pm EDT (which was when I got their email). Then I come on here and it's old news since 4 am this morning 😁!
Anyway, I think this is just something they did to temper the overall devaluation of their program and moving to dynamic pricing.
Anyway, I think this is just something they did to temper the overall devaluation of their program and moving to dynamic pricing.
Aug 29, 2019, 10:48 am
#113
Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: Chicago Illinois
Programs: 1MM UA
Posts: 1,753
This is good news for me. My United flying became irregular when I hit retirement age. But more importantly, I "manage" the accounts of my 4 family members and this gives me one less thing to worry about. As a data point, my family has 472K (total) Delta miles which would have expired by now under the previous Delta rules. Well, they wouldn't have since I would have done something with magazines or dining to make sure they wouldn't have expired. But the "never expire" rule saves the mental energy that would have required. For me, that is a good thing.
Some have talked about all the devaluations over the years. My family mostly uses domestic RT (50 of them since 1991) which were 25K in the late 80's and 25K in 2019.
Some have talked about all the devaluations over the years. My family mostly uses domestic RT (50 of them since 1991) which were 25K in the late 80's and 25K in 2019.
Aug 29, 2019, 11:45 am
#114
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Austin, TX
Posts: 21,419
In the late 80s, they were 25K on almost any flight. Now, they're 25K on distressed inventory only, and 50-65K is more common. And, starting November 15th, they're... who knows how much.
Aug 29, 2019, 11:50 am
#115
Join Date: Feb 2008
Programs: 6 year GS, now 2MM Jeff-ugee, *wood LTPlt, SkyPeso PLT
Posts: 6,526
This is good news for me. My United flying became irregular when I hit retirement age. But more importantly, I "manage" the accounts of my 4 family members and this gives me one less thing to worry about. As a data point, my family has 472K (total) Delta miles which would have expired by now under the previous Delta rules. Well, they wouldn't have since I would have done something with magazines or dining to make sure they wouldn't have expired. But the "never expire" rule saves the mental energy that would have required. For me, that is a good thing.
Some have talked about all the devaluations over the years. My family mostly uses domestic RT (50 of them since 1991) which were 25K in the late 80's and 25K in 2019.
Some have talked about all the devaluations over the years. My family mostly uses domestic RT (50 of them since 1991) which were 25K in the late 80's and 25K in 2019.
Basically UA miles are worth 1 cent each moving forward, and I see no reason to collect them. I'll just try to use what I get on the few *A partners who make space available.
Aug 29, 2019, 12:53 pm
#116
Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 540
The cynic in me says that the beancounters already figured out that most of the easy money (or liability reduction) has been made from miles that expired when the 18-month policy went into affect. 18 months plus an 18-month grace period to recover expired miles would be close to now. With not much left to recover of those large balances, might as well get some goodwill.
Pretty sad that United couldn't be bothered to notify it's customers that their miles were in danger of expiring when the policy went into affect, but now they tout it in a big email to everybody that the expiration is going away. But I guess that is to be expected.
Pretty sad that United couldn't be bothered to notify it's customers that their miles were in danger of expiring when the policy went into affect, but now they tout it in a big email to everybody that the expiration is going away. But I guess that is to be expected.
Aug 29, 2019, 1:00 pm
#117
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: Bucks County
Programs: UAL GS & Million Miler; Delta Lifetime Gold; Hilton Diamond; Marriott Platinum; Legion Etrangere
Posts: 1,609
Aug 29, 2019, 2:31 pm
#119
Join Date: Dec 1999
Location: NorCal - 1K 2MM
Posts: 2,089
They certainly can...and already do. Thing FlexMiles on the PP card, and the Choices program on the older UA cards - while you can't redeem for PQM, you can still use those miles earned on a CC to redeem for the card annual fee, or a credit for booked travel (I think its $0.01/mile...not great, but its an option).
Last edited by WineCountryUA; Aug 29, 2019 at 2:32 pm Reason: repaired quote
Aug 29, 2019, 2:37 pm
#120
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Austin, TX
Posts: 21,419
They do track them separately, but not at the level of detail where they assign each mile a source.
Rather, you're only allowed to use as many Choices as miles that you've earned from the card, in aggregate. So, the condition is "sufficient miles in the M+ account" plus "total miles earned from the card minus total Choices redeemed is sufficient."
Rather, you're only allowed to use as many Choices as miles that you've earned from the card, in aggregate. So, the condition is "sufficient miles in the M+ account" plus "total miles earned from the card minus total Choices redeemed is sufficient."