Saving My Grandmother’s Miles (Fighting Expiration)
For more than a decade, my grandmother was a frequent flyer as she traveled on business around the country, earning a substantial number of frequent flyer miles in the American Airlines AAdvantage Program. She’s been retired for a number of years, but is planning a trip for a grandchild’s graduation, and wanted me to look into using her miles to get a free award ticket.
It turns out, though, that my grandmother’s frequent flyer miles expired last December, a loss of over 125,000 miles! Apparently it had been over a year and a half since she last earned miles, and as a result, her miles expired due to a lack of activity.
When You Should Care
What surprised me about this was that my grandmother is otherwise incredibly on-top of her finances. While frequent flyer miles are certainly an abstract form of assets, at the very least these miles can usually be valued at around $0.01/mile, but often closer to $0.02, meaning that my grandmother had let miles expire that could be valued between $1,250 - $2,500 depending on how she used them.
Helpful Tip: So when should you actively care about your miles? While it is never a bad idea to take the minimal steps necessary to any amount from expiring, a good rule of thumb is once you’ve earned at least 15,000 miles, you should pay attention. 15,000 miles is about 60% of the way to a domestic (US) award ticket on most airlines, could be valued at around $150, and, on some airlines, is even enough for certain awards.
The importance only goes up the more miles you have; my grandmother should have been paying attention, as she had enough to fly business class almost anywhere American Airlines flies. Even if you don’t have 15K miles, there are very easy tasks (that don’t involve flying!) that can keep your miles from expiring.
Knowledge: Know When Your Miles Expire
First, it is important to understand what keeps your frequent flyer miles alive. With most programs, your miles expire a certain period of time since your last activity. Not necessarily the last time you flew, not even the last time you earned miles, but the last time you had any activity. As a result, doing obvious things like flying or earning credit card miles keep your miles alive, but also earning miles from dining, shopping, promotions, and (often) spending or donating miles.
Second, you need to know what the mileage expiration policy is for your airline. I’ve compiled the following helpful cheat-sheet that seems to be accurate at this time:
| Airline | Policy |
| American Airlines | All miles expire after 18 months of inactivity |
| United Airlines | All miles expire after 18 months of inactivity |
| Delta Airlines | All miles expire after 2 years of inactivity |
| Continental Airlines | No expiration |
| Northwest Airlines | All miles expire after 3 years of inactivity |
| US Airways | All miles expire after 18 months of inactivity |
| Southwest Airlines | Each credit expires 2 years after earned |
| JetBlue Airlines | Each point expires 1 year after its earned (exceptions for JetBlue Amex Holders) |
Helpful Tip: Make sure you have signed up for your airline’s emails (usually subscribing to receive your statement by email is sufficient). Not only will this remind you how many miles you have and when they expire, but it will also help make sure you receive notification when airlines change their policies.
How To Keep Your Miles Alive
A common misconception is that you need to fly or have a credit card to keep your miles alive. These days, frequent flyer programs are their own little industry, and there are numerous ways to earn miles, any of which could extend the life of your miles.
For illustration purposes, I’ll use American Airlines, but this would generally apply to most airlines.
For example, to keep your miles alive on American, you can:
- Fly on American or one of its partners, either by buying a ticket and earning miles, or through redeeming miles for an award ticket.
- Dine at a participating restaurant through the American Airlines Dining Rewards program (more info)
- Shop online through the American E-Shopping program
- Donate miles to the Make-A-Wish foundation, or donate money to numerous charities and earn miles for your donation.
- Rent a car from one of the numerous partners
- Buy, share, or gift miles through the airline
And many, many more. Most airlines also maintain a page where they list all of their partners (see this page for American). In my opinion, the simplest way to earn miles to keep your account alive is to use the shopping portal for your airline — a quick $1 purchase at iTunes through the AAdvantage E-Shopping Mall earns you 2 miles, and those 2 miles will keep your miles alive for another year and a half.
The lesson, though, is to pay attention to those miles, especially if you have enough to make them a significant asset!
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