Frequent flyer Miles warning.

[wyatt]

I recently went to my American Airlines account to consider booking a flight. Much to my surprise my balance account went from 52,500. to 0
A link saying a new policy started Dec.16 that 18 months of none activity would expire miles. I called them and told them I had not been notified of this change by mail or email. They verified my email. Which was correct. I was told that I should have been notified and since Dec 16th was not that long ago that they could reinstate my miles if I created activity. One way was to donate a minimum of 250 miles to a children's charity. I took that option. Now my miles are good for a minimum of 18 months from today or next activity. I just think it was not right for AA to take away the miles in the first place. What if I hadn't checked my account for several months. I checked my balance recently and didn't see any warning. Oh well maybe the charities will get a couple of ticket from all the donations they might receive
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[missydog1]

most or at least many airlines have the no activity expiration. It would be nice if they notified you, but they notify you in advance when you sign up, so they don't have to warn you, although some do -- like United, IIRC.

A lot of people (such as myself) have credit cards that add miles, or a phone service, or something that adds miles, so they never run into the expiration rule. I don't think any of the miles on my account are from flying, maybe one or two inter-island trips. I usually earn the miles with cards and fly using the miles. ;-)

[wyatt]

Aloha KathyH,

I had a card and dropped it. But less than a month ago my account had
an expire date in 2008 and then this happened without notice.

[JerryCarr]

As Kathy noted, nearly all the airlines have gone to expirations of various types. (Northwest is a notable exception, but their "terms and conditions" reserve the right to adopt one.)

There are ways, other than credit cards (which usually have annual fees) or donation of miles to generate activity. Go to your airline's website and look up non-airline "partners." Everything from car rentals to hotels to bookstores to catalog shopping can earn new miles and keep your old ones alive. Also, award redemption counts as activity for most airlines.

Bear and I retired with about a million FF miles between us, so we have learned how to work the systems. (Yes, we flew a LOT on business.) The biggest problem we have with our FF accounts is finding award availability when we need or want it. Most of the airlines are getting stingier with the free seats all the time. Delta has been particularly bad about this in the past year or so. As former Atlanta residents, you can imagine where most or our miles are sitting. Delta. Fortunately they allow some redemption on Northwest, Continental, and other SkyTeam partners, or we'd be really P.O'ed.

Cheers,
Jerry

[emorata]

yes talk about delta being extremely stingy....in order to fly to singapore, i had to fly with their partner and through paris from the west coast-it took a total of 36 hours to get to my destination...was it worth it - yes since i had a fun 12 hour lay over in paris!

i have united now and have a charge card that racks up more mileage for everything...groceries, gas, entertaining, etc-those mileages credits add up especially at restaurants with groups, everyone pays cash and i use my credit card so i can use the mileage....

noel