LittleK

Due to general laziness, the fact that I no longer fly for work, and my husband's deadly fear of airplanes, I have forfeited approx. 192k miles. You can say it...I am a moron. Trying to understand the best option. Options:

$400 reinstatement fee
Credit card
Fly by 12/31/14

Cheapest flight from my city is to MCO. What happens if I book a one-way ticket and only take the first leg? Direct flight to PHL is $400, to MCO (via PHL) is $91. Would I get credit for the first leg therefore reinstating my miles? Thank you!

eponymous_coward

Possibly not, as what you are doing is hidden city ticketing (which is prohibited under the terms of the US contract of carriage). It's kind of risky to violate the terms under which you bought the ticket and expect to get mileage credit.

bridgeair

Your last activity date was more than 18 months ago.
Miles forfeited: 7,734

I got the above message in my US airways e-statement. What should I do?

They charge $50 to reinstate the miles--seems horribly expensive to me, but other options are:

Earn miles with our partners (hotels, car rentals and more)
-- is there a partner where I can cheaply earn a few miles? It seems one an option is to buy 1000 miles for just over $30. Anything cheaper?

Buy a ticket, fly on US and earn Dividend Miles**
-- I don't plan to do this

Apply for and use the US Airways® Premier World MasterCard®***
-- I am not in USA

milesandmoremiles

Is there something you plan on doing with the miles or do you plan on at some point earning enough miles for a redemption?

If you don't have a plan for the miles, why don't you just donate them so at least they don't go to waste.

bridgeair

What I did is go to dividendmilesstorefront.com and signed up for a NY Times subscription costing $5. This earns me 950 miles.

nancyeast

bridgeair, Did you have to purchase the $5 subscription with a US Airways credit card? I am in the same predicament as you (greater than 18 months since any account activity, therefore I must choose an option to reinstate the miles) but I no longer have a US Airways credit card. When I clicked on the link for the NY Times offers, it kept redirecting me to the Barclay credit card website to log in there in order to complete the purchase. I tried to also connect to Lands End to make a purchase and gain miles that way, but it did the same thing--redirected to Barclay's login page and said I must login there before I can proceed.

Any advice is most appreciated! I am kicking myself for letting these miles expire to these degree but don't want to pay $150 to have them reinstated (I had more miles than you did, hence the higher fee).

AlreadyThere

OK, time to revive this thread with a whole new light. I received an email offering to "revive" my Dividend Miles since there was no account activity since last year. I didn't know the miles were under threat. I'm an AA EXP. Gee, why do they suppose I've been crediting all my current flying miles to a single program?

One of the revival "offers" involves flying AA but crediting it to DM. ??? Maybe I should put my AA EXP number in first to contend for the upgrade and get the on-board food in economy, then switch the record to my DM (now-)kettle number once I get off the plane?

I know they haven't combined programs yet, but I think this is ridiculous. I think that at this point if you're active in either program, you should stay alive in both. If (for some reason) not, they should make this clear.

Venabili

Give them a call and see if they are willing to extend the miles validity - there is no way for the automatic US system to know that you are over at AA now - the systems are not connected yet ... so they treat you exactly as they see you - someone with no activity.

fordan

Why wouldn't they be "under threat?" I'm a US CP and crediting all my flights to US, and I get regular emails from both US and AA with my balance and the expiration date. To keep my AA miles good until the programs merge I've been tossing in a few miles from a car rental or the like from time to time when the expiration date starts to loom.

We've known since January that the programs weren't merging in 2014.

eponymous_coward

Isn't that what they just did, make it clear that activity in AA doesn't count as far as US is concerned?

I manage to keep modest balances in both programs good, and I'm an elite on NEITHER program. It's really not hard (buy dinner somewhere using the AA or US dining programs and you're good for 18 months).

wilful

I'm in the same boat as nancy east who posted on 11-22-14. Do you know of any way I can "(buy dinner somewhere using the AA or US dining programs)" WITHOUT using a U.S. Airways credit card? I no longer have one.

susieling

My US Airway miles are expiring in 2 days, and I had done a car rental last week in addition to a purchase via the frontstore, however, nothing posted into the account yet, just wondering whether the miles will be eventually posted into the date where the service (rental) happened so the miles will be re-activated? or once it is gone, it won't come back -- and it will be safe for me to pay the $9 fee to preserve it today? thanks!

rgm18

i needed to extend my miles so i donated 1000 miles to make a wish. my mile balance decreased but it doesnt show it in my account activity (made the donation about a week ago). usair's website wont tell me my expiration date. i do know that previously usair's site would send me to a page to extend my miles by paying $9 but it is no longer doing that at all and when i google that page, it redirects me to usair's main site...
any ideas?
thanks!

hitherandyon

Easiest way to find out your miles expiration date is to go on the site, go to your Dividend miles page, change the dates to 2 years previous to the present date, click "filter changes". You'll see all your activity for the past 2 years, the last one that has a check in the Preferred column is the last activity counted, then add 18 months to that date.
(The date can only go back 2 years from today's date).

You also could call and ask about the $9 retention.

rgm18

yes, i did that but the donation is not listed despite the fact that they deducted the miles from my account!