December 18, 2006
Don’t Let Your Miles Disappear
A New York Times article published in October points out a major shift in the policy of frequent flyer programs; the inactivity timeout for many programs has been quietly shortened. If you don’t earn or spend miles for a certain period of time, airlines will close your account and take away all your miles. In times past, no airline would reclaim your miles until you’d gone at least three years without account activity. If you are a customer of several of the major US carriers, including US Airways, your miles will expire if you go 18 months without activity.
Jen actually reads her junk mail, so she noticed that her 55,000 US Airways miles were about to expire. We poked around a bit and discovered that transferring US Airways miles into any other program is nearly impossible. points.com will allow you to transfer miles out of a US Airways account, but your 55,000 US Airways miles will amount to less than 3,000 AAdvantage miles. On the other hand, award tickets are really flexible. You can buy a ticket today and change the time and date without penalty for up to a year (thanks, Jimmy).
As the Times article points out, though, you can simply donate a few miles or buy a magazine subscription and you’ll have another 18 months before your miles disappear. I extended the expiration on my Delta miles by getting Mary that subscription to Teen Vogue she’s been wanting.
