Shhh! Don’t tell anyone your frequent flier miles are expiring

Whenever I write anything about expiring frequent flier miles, I invariably get a comment or two from a grizzled road warrior who says: Serves ya right — you were warned!

True enough, airlines have done a much better job of trying to tell their customers when points are about to vanish. But they don’t always succeed.

Consider what happened to Karen Saper, who has been a Delta SkyMiles member nearly two decades.

She had accumulated enough miles to fly to Europe, and she planned to use them for a special occasion. But it wasn’t meant to be. A few months ago, Saper received a letter informing her she could buy back her expired miles. She was floored.

I didn’t know that my miles had expired. I called Delta a few different times and each time got a different story.

The last story I received was that I would need to write a letter to Delta SkyMiles as you wouldn’t respond to these concerns via the phone. I was also told that you had sent me many warnings that my miles were about to expire.

I never received any such letters and when I told your representatives that, I was told that Delta never received any non-deliverable mail from me. When I asked how the letters were mailed, I was told ‘Third class mail’. I don’t believe that 3rd class/bulk mail even forwards mail that is not deliverable?

Saper went to great lengths to make sure her miles didn’t expire. She even signed up for the Delta Dining program, but it appears that none of her activity got reported to Delta. She says she recently updated her email address to ensure the airline could reach her with any important announcements.

I’ve written about the value of loyalty programs a hundred times, including a few weeks ago when I suggested the loyalty may go only one way. But if Saper wants to participate in them, the least Delta can do is give her a straight answer about her missing miles.

Delta didn’t respond to her faxed letter. Months went by. She appealed by email to a customer service executive, but apparently because of some reshuffling at the executive level, the company didn’t respond. I helped her get in touch with the right person through On Your Side, the new customer service wiki that I edit. It worked.

I just wanted to share with you some good news. I don’t know if you remember, but I contacted you about my Delta mileage – I sent you my email exchange with Delta’s customer service – it was lengthy. I did as you suggested and sent an email to Alison Ausband, VP of Customer Service for Delta. I got this response from her-

“Karen: I greatly apologize for the ‘going back and forth’ that you have experienced with us in an effort to get your miles reinstated. This is not acceptable from our team. Please know we have reinstated 140,691 miles to your account. I hope that you and your daughter have a wonderful trip; and again, I am sorry we made this difficult for you. Allison Ausband”

Just thought you would like to know that they came through with flying colors – it did take 7+ months to resolve but was well worth it.

Lesson learned? Sometimes your miles expire despite your best efforts. When that happens, only persistence can get them back.

  • TennTom

    Sometimes the airlines do more harm than good with their loyalty programs. If I feel one has not lived up to its end of the bargain, I’ll make every effort to avoid flying with them in the future. I hope Ms. Saper was somehow compensated for all of her trouble in getting the miles back. If not, I admire her forgiving attitude!

  • Ann

    “Best efforts”? She went to “great lengths” to make sure her miles didn’t expire? It doesn’t seem that way. If the miles and the special trip were that important to her, why wasn’t she regularly checking her account to see if her Delta Dining activity was being credited? Why didn’t she check on the expiration date of her miles since she had this special trip in mind? I think she deserved to get the miles back, but she should take more responsibility to monitor her account.

  • Dave

    On some level I suppose we should be glad when people lose their miles due to inattention — makes it easier for us to use ours!

  • Steve

    I’m glad she got her miles back. I can’t understand why so many loyalty programs have expiration dates, especially when the period of inactivity before they expire is relatively low (I believe for Delta it’s 18 months). Due to the way loyalty programs inflate the amount of miles/points needed for a given award over time, the longer you hold on to your points/miles before redeeming them, the less you actually get – which benefits the company. (I like Holiday Inn’s Priority Club in part because the points never expire).

    At the very least, I think once a person reaches a certain level (either in miles/points or time), as a courtesy their rewards should never expire. Someone who’s been an active member for 20 years would sure fit that profile, IMHO.

    Having said all that, I’m not sure she deserves any extra compensation for her struggle, though I agree Delta should have been more responsive. I do feel she’s entitled to the miles she earned and I’m very glad Delta restored them.

  • Charles

    The easiest solution to this problem is to be sure you have an active internet account with the airline. When I log onto any of my FF accounts, it clearly shows the expiration date for the miles, so I know. Then, just be sure to make some transaction before that date to reset the clock. We’ve ordered magazines before, which works with United and we have a Delta Skymiles American Express, so that clock resets every month no matter what.

  • Arizona Road Warrior

    It will be customer-centric if the airlines will send a certified letter to a member of their FF where their miles were about to expire in 60 days. Or if they just send a letter or e-mail. Recently, I spoke with a person that works for an airline FF program…there are thousands of accounts with bad mailing addresses and e-mail addresses.

    If you read the terms and conditions of these airline FF programs, they are not obligated to contact you. It is your responsibility to manage your account. Every time that Chris has a story about expired FF miles, it is the same story…the person wanted to get tickets (typically for a special event) and the person discovered that their FF miles have expired and the person claims that never been notified, they always read everything, etc.

    I have been a member of the Delta FF program since the 1980′s. Every month, I receive my e-mail statement from Delta which clearly states when my miles will expire. When I log into my account at the Delta, it clearly states when my miles will expire. Last month, I stayed at a Red Lion hotel where I selected Delta for the miles from this stay. This week, I received an e-mail from Delta stating that miles was posted to my account. I think that Delta does a good job in showing their FF members when their miles will expire…it just require their FF members to read.

    I don’t buy the story that Mrs. Saper went to great lengths to make sure that her miles didn’t expires. Is she telling us that she read her Delta SkyMiles eStatement every month for the past 24 months? She logged into her Delta FF account online during the past 24 months? If she read her eStatements or log into her accout, she would have saw 1) the date of the expiration of her miles and 2) no activity for her activities for her Delta Dining program.

    I have particpated in several promotions with US Airways where a few of my activities were not posted to my account thus not getting me to a higher bonus, etc. I contacted the Dividend Miles folks at US Airways with the problems, they corrected my account and I received the bonus, etc. for the promotion. If Mrs. Saper truly had activities for her Delta Dining program during the 24 months, it is hard for me to believe that Delta won’t credit this activity and reactivate her miles without a cost once it was reported.

    When I moved to PHX, America West\US Airways became my primary airline; therefore, my activity with Delta has been very limited. I have received mail from the Delta magazine partner when my miles were within 6 months of expiring asking me to purchase a magazine subscription to keep my miles from expiring. Last year, my then 3-YO son received an offer from the US Airways magazine partner when his miles were within 9 months of expiring. The reality is that most people don’t open up junk mail.

    I treat my miles and points as ‘currency’ or as an ‘asset’. There are three to four websites (at least two of them are free to use) that you can use to monitor your airline miles. If you value your airline miles and/or hotel points then you need to monitor your accounts. The bottom line is that airline and hotel companies can change their programs at will; therefore, if you have miles and points and you are planning to use them in the future, you must monitor your accounts for changes and etc.

    Last year, I had 300,000+ miles expired at Delta. I knew when my miles were going to expire. I made a mistake of entering the wrong date in my Outlook calendar and Task item. I did my activity and when I went to my account to check on the posting of this account, I saw that my 300,000+ miles were expired.

    It cost me $ 50 plus tax ($ 3 to $ 4) to reinstate all of my miles. First, it was my fault. I wasn’t going to lie to Delta about not knowing, not receiving, etc. I wasn’t going to use that I was a top elite FF with Delta for ten straight years or that I spent thousands of dollars over the years with Delta. I took the responsibility for my mistake. Second, I wasn’t going spend a lot of time (I put a value on my time) to save $ 53.50. One thing that I changed after this event is to have actitivies more frequently with my ‘slightly active’ or ‘inactive’ FF accounts than to wait until 60 to 90 days to do something.

    The bottom line is that if you have airline miles or hotel points, you need to manage them and be accountable for your actions or lack of actions.

  • Arizona Road Warrior

    @ Steve – “I can’t understand why so many loyalty programs have expiration dates, especially when the period of inactivity before they expire is relatively low (I believe for Delta it’s 18 months).
    - – - – - – — – - – - – - –
    There are two reasons. 1) The miles or points are a liability on their books so they want the miles or points off their books. 2) These frequent flyer programs and frequent guest programs (you see that I don’t call them loyalty programs) are FREQUENT or INCENTIVE programs…nothing to do with loyalty and everything to do with frequent transactions and\or incentives to do more business. The airlines and hotels want repeat business especially for non-flight and non-room activities. For example, the airlines love the affinity credit card programs. The credit card bank will purchase a bunch of miles from the airline which is great cash flow for the airline.

    In regards to Delta, it is 24 months not 18 months.

  • Carver

    @Arizona

    I respectfully disagree. I think its ludicrous that I have to read every statement, make unwanted purchases, sign up for unwanted credit cards, etc to keep my miles. I earned the miles, I don’t see why the airlines have the right to impose such diligence requirements on me.

    Basically, we need to ask, what is the justification for allowing airlines to expire miles? The short answer is that miles are a debit item on the books and if they are unlikely to be used, then they really shouldn’t be a debit item. Fair enough. The answer that you don’t care because you didn’t check rings hollow. People who are not road warriors, generally have better things to do than manage frequent flier accounts.

    Therefore, only those miles which are unlikely to be used should be expired. The airlines such as AA set a threshhold at 18 months. That’s silly. A better and fairer approach would be to set a minimum threshhold level. It is reasonable that someone with few miles, say not enough to buy a coach ticket, combined with extended inactivity, is probably never going to use that account. I don’t mind those expiring.

    By contrast, someone with 100K miles is almost certainly going to use those miles. To forfeit these miles is solely an attempt to enrich the airlines at the customers’ expense.

    Banks also forfeit customer account after a period of inactivity. However, unlike airlines, when a bank forfeits the account, the bank doesn’t keep the money, it goes to the state. Also, any activity, including checking any of your accounts by phone or internet, resets the clock.

    Since the airline keeps the benefit of the forfeitted miles, it is an inherent conflict of interest.

  • Arizona Road Warrior

    @ Ann – “Best efforts”? She went to “great lengths” to make sure her miles didn’t expire? It doesn’t seem that way. If the miles and the special trip were that important to her, why wasn’t she regularly checking her account to see if her Delta Dining activity was being credited? Why didn’t she check on the expiration date of her miles since she had this special trip in mind?
    - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
    I agree with you. It will be refreshing if someone just come clean and say “I haven’t check my account for 5 years and I saw that my miles were expired and can you help me?”

    @ Ann – “I think she deserved to get the miles back, but she should take more responsibility to monitor her account.”
    - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
    If she truly had Delta Dinning activities in her last 24 months, Delta should have credit these activities and reinstated her miles without her going to the levels that she did to get her miles back.

  • Bill

    She went through 7 months of grief to save $53?

  • Carver

    @No one in particular

    “If the miles and the special trip were that important to her, why wasn’t she (fill in the blank)
    =================================

    I have a huge issue with that statement. Ultimately the statement comes down to “This is what I do, you should do it too.” That’s pretty arrogant

  • Tom

    On UA if you have “activity” you can extend for a year. Donating 100 miles to charity is all it takes to register “activity”

  • Steve

    Arizona Road Warrior – all of the points you make above about checking your balance, paying attention to correspondence from the airlines, etc, are very sound (personally, I keep a spreadsheet of the programs to which I belong with my balances and expiration dates and check it at least every couple months), but they don’t change my core opinion that making significant balances of FF miles/points expire after relatively short periods of inactivity (18-24 months) is a pretty customer-unfriendly practice. I’m with Carver: unless we’re talking about customers who sign up, earn a couple thousand miles, and then go inactive, I think either the miles shouldn’t expire or the expiration date should be significantly further out.

    The point that someone who hasn’t had activity in 18-24 months is unlikely to give the company much business in the near future is valid, but to that I’ll ask which do you think is more likely to induce that customer to come back: giving them access to their FF miles/points already earned, or summarily confiscating them?

    Carver: you raise an interesting point about FF miles in relation to bank balances. Clearly the airlines stipulate that FF miles aren’t the traveler’s property like a bank account is, but given that you can now buy miles, I wonder how a court would look at the case of someone who purchased miles and subsequently had them expire before using them. (Granted, that’s an unlikely case because the only remotely valid reason to purchase miles I’ve seen – and even this is a stretch – is if you’re just a little bit short of an award ticket for a trip you’re about to take).

    FWIW, my only personal experience with expired rewards was when I signed up for a credit card connected to the Wyndham Rewards program and the bank mistakenly signed me up for a new Wyndham Rewards account instead of posting the points to the account I’d informed them I had. The bank gave me the runaround for several months when I asked when my rewards would be posted, and when I finally contacted Wyndham Rewards the points in my old account had expired just days before. It was an insignificant amount of reward points and I wouldn’t have been upset at them if they’d refused to reinstate them (I was and still am annoyed at the bank for signing me up for a new account without informing me), but they immediately reinstated them as a goodwill gesture.

  • http://gottogovacationrentals.com Tom

    It’s just amazing what level of effort she had to exert just to get a reasonable answer from Delta. I was glad however to hear that her daughter would get to go on her trim. I think it is great that you were able to help her resolve her seemingly unresolvable problem.

  • Dan

    @ Steve
    >”I wonder how a court would look at the case of someone who purchased miles and subsequently had them expire before using them. (Granted, that’s an unlikely case because the only remotely valid reason to purchase miles I’ve seen – and even this is a stretch – is if you’re just a little bit short of an award ticket for a trip you’re about to take).”

    This is not always the case; especially with the type of promotions some airlines have been running recently (e.g.US Airways gives you twice the amount of miles that you pay for, up to 100k miles).
    Now, that would be a shame to lose miles you bought and that you obviously intend to use…

  • Mark K

    A statement made in the article that “she recently updated her email address” is very important to this situation. Every loyalty program I belong to, air hotel car etc., will exclusively send email to you if they have an email address on file and never send paper mail once they have your email address. So she probably received numerous emails alerting her to the expiration sent to the old address they had on file that she never saw.

    While I don’t check every loyalty program I have on a regular basis as has been suggested by others here, I do keep my contact information current. And I notice the emails I get that say “YOUR POINTS ARE EXPIRING!” I recently received an email of this type from Hilton. Not only did it say my points were expiring, it gave me half a dozen options to keep them and most would cost me little or nothing. When I got the expiration email from Delta, I took the option to donate my miles to charity since I rarely fly Delta anymore and did not have enough for even the lowest economy ticket. At least this meant the miles (hopefully) went to good use instead of going back to Delta. I also got email from Iceland Air saying my 30,000 points were expiring. I didn’t even remember I had an Iceland Air account! (Signed up for some giveaway but never flew with them.)

    I do check those accounts that I expect to see activity on to make sure it posts. There have been several times that points/miles don’t show up and I have had to contact the company to request them. I have never had any issues with getting missing points credited.

    So what it all comes down to is it is OUR responsibility to make sure we don’t lose our points. We have to following the rules, however idiotic they may seem, that these companies set up. After all, none of the policies and rules are designed to benefit us.

  • HI Innkeeper

    To Carver:

    How is it arrogant to expect people to follow the rules?

    This is more of a case of not accepting responsibility for their own mistakes.

    Carver July 9, 2010 at 12:49 pm

    @No one in particular

    “If the miles and the special trip were that important to her, why wasn’t she (fill in the blank)
    =================================

    I have a huge issue with that statement. Ultimately the statement comes down to “This is what I do, you should do it too.” That’s pretty arrogant

  • Carver

    @HI Innkeeper.

    You completely missed the point of my post. To reiterate.

    The forfeiture rule is highly unethical as applied to frequent flier accounts. Forfeiture is generally acceptable only when the owner’s actions suggest that he or she has abandoned property. With over 100,000 miles, it is unreasonable to believe that those were abandoned. And such forfeiture after 18 months is ridiculous.

    Ultimately this comes down to personality types. I’m happy for those type “J” personalities who choose to actively manage their frequent flier accounts. But that’s just a personality type. It has nothing to do with whether the OP values her miles. The only information that you can glean is that she is probably not a type “J”.

    The arrogance comes in because some type “J” personality don’t respect other personality types with regards to the management of frequent flier accounts.

  • Arizona Road Warrior

    @ Steve – “Arizona Road Warrior – …but they don’t change my core opinion that making significant balances of FF miles/points expire after relatively short periods of inactivity (18-24 months) is a pretty customer-unfriendly practice.
    - – - – — – - — – - – - – — -
    I agree that to cancel miles after 18 to 24 month of inactivity isn’t customer centric but that are the rules of these FF programs. The terms and conditions for these FF program states that the airline can change the rules for these FF programs at any time. If you don’t like the FF program, don’t join…no one is putting a shot gun to your head and forcing you to join. If you have miles then donate all of your miles to an organization like the American Red Cross, Fisher House Foundation, Make-A-Wish Foundation, Mercy Medical Airlift, Miles of Hope, etc. then cancel your FF membership unless you want to continue to donate your miles to an organization.

    Even Southwest Airlines will cancel credits in a passenger‘s Rapid Rewards account after 24 months: “Each credit is valid for 24 months from the date earned. Your Rapid Rewards account will contain only valid credits collected within the immediately preceding 24 consecutive months. If a credit is not applied toward an Award within 24 months of the date earned, it will be deleted from your Rapid Rewards account balance. Southwest Airlines reserves the right to cancel the membership of any Member with no credits in the account and who has earned no credits for at least 12 consecutive months.”

    In the 90’s, I remember when Delta stopped the’ lifetime’ miles and started SkyMiles where I had two sets of miles…one for ‘lifetime’ and one for SkyMiles. Then I remember when Delta converted ‘lifetime miles’ into SkyMiles. In the past five years or longer, airlines implemented expiration dates for the miles in their FF program. If you have joined a FF program in the past five years or so, it was disclosed in the terms and conditions of the airline FF program that miles will expired after a period (i.e. 18 months, 24 months, etc) of no activity. For an individual that joined a FF program in the 80s or 90s where they earned ‘lifetime’ miles then stop flying by the early 2000s might be surprised to learn that their miles have expired. However, if an individual that joined a FF program in the past few years can’t be surprised.

    The reality is that the successes of these airlines’ frequent flyer programs are greater than these airlines ever thought. As a result, over 14 trillion frequent-flyer miles have been accumulated by individuals worldwide with a USD value of over $ 700 billion dollars. These miles show up as a liability on the airline’s balance sheet. The airlines wants these miles off their balance sheets so that they can have better books.

    If prices for airline tickets have kept pace with the CPI, it is my opinion that we won’t be having this discussion today.

  • Arizona Road Warrior

    @ Bill – “She went through 7 months of grief to save $53?”
    - – - – - – - – - — – — – - – - – - – - – -
    To be fair, Delta has changed their prices to reactivate expired miles. Currently, it is now a flat fee of $ 250 to reactive 100,000 or miles. Depending upon when her mile expired and when she tried to reactivate her miles, the cost could have been $ 53 or $ 250. For me, I put a value on my time so even at $ 250, it would have been a bargain especially if it took seven months.

  • Carver

    @Arizona

    You are of course correct that those are the rules of the frequent flier program. However, just because a company puts something in its contract doesn’t mean that its legal, valid, or enforceable.

    In most other types of contracts, it would be considered illusory to be able to state that you can change the terms an conditions of past performance. For example, when a credit card changes its terms and conditions, each member is allowed to opt out, close the account, and remain under the previous terms and conditions.

    Similiary, when a business has monopolistic behavior, e.g. an oligopoly, its actions are scrutinized by the government (think Microsoft)

    But what I, as an attorney, find most interesting, is that FF programs get to violate one of the most basic tenets of contract law, i.e. equity abhors a forfeiture. A total loss is usually a rather stiff penalty. Unless a penalty is reasonable in relation to the seriousness of the fault, it is too harsh. Here, the loss of hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of miles is disproportionately high when compared to failing the contractual obligation of having activity which can be generated for a little as $20.

    Only in the twilight zone of airline world is that legal.

  • Arizona Road Warrior

    @ Mark K – “So what it all comes down to is it is OUR responsibility to make sure we don’t lose our points. We have to following the rules, however idiotic they may seem, that these companies set up. After all, none of the policies and rules are designed to benefit us.”
    - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -
    I agree with you; however, there are some individuals (you can read their posted comments) that believe in the expansion of the nannystate to the airlines. People are too ignorant, too busy watching reality TV shows, etc. to read their FF statements; therefore, the airlines need to baby them. The most hilarious comment was that the personality of a person can prevent them from reading statements. I wonder how these individuals can live their lives and manage their finances like reading a mortgage application, a mortgage statement, a car insurance policy, a homeowner policy, a car loan application, a bank statement, a credit card statement, etc. Do these individuals qualify for the Americans with Disabilities Act? If these individuals purchase inadequate car insurance and was at fault in a car accident, they should not be responsibility since it is against their personality to read statements, policies, etc?

    I don’t think that only individuals with ‘J’ personality can have personal responsibility. Our country was founded on the principle of personal responsibilities.

  • Arizona Road Warrior

    @ Carver – “However, just because a company puts something in its contract doesn’t mean that its legal, valid, or enforceable.”
    - – - – - – - – - – — – - – - – - – -
    I read an article within the last few years that clearly pointed out the laws on why airline can do what they can do with their FF programs. If I can find it, it will post the link to it.

    @ Carver – “…when a credit card changes its terms and conditions, each member is allowed to opt out, close the account, and remain under the previous terms and conditions.”
    - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -
    Over the years, I have received revised T&Cs from credit card companies stating IF I had a balance on my account, my account can remain opened until my balance is paid off but I won’t be able to make any new charges.

    @ Carver But what I, as an attorney, find most interesting, is that FF programs get to violate one of the most basic tenets of contract law, i.e. equity abhors a forfeiture. A total loss is usually a rather stiff penalty.”
    - – - – - – - – - – - – - -
    I have seen a few articles which talks about that a frequent flyer is NOT the owner of the miles. It is somewhat similar to a software license. Unless you purchase the source code for a software program, you don’t own the software…you have only a license to operate the software. It is common that the software license is tied to a software support agreement. I have worked for three software companies and once the software support agreement isn’t renewed then the software license is no longer valid and the T&Cs call for the user to stop using the software and the software vendor has the rights to come on site to remove the software from PCs, check to the software is being used, etc. The software license is not an asset of the user so if the business is sold to another company, the new owner needs to pay money to transfer the software license, etc.

    Again, if I can find these articles, I will post a link.

  • DN

    I just ran into a similar situation with Delta and my elderly mother. She thought her Delta miles were lifetime (those were miles she and my late father had collected in the 1980s and 1990s). Since my father was the one in charge of all the correspondence and he passed away in 2007, my mother only keeps up with the more important things (bills, property taxes, etc). Last week, she asked me to close out her Delta and United accounts and donate the miles to some charity (HeroMiles, for example). I asked her when she last flew either of those airlines and received a vague “sometime this decade” answer. Based on my experiences, I told her that it was 100% likely that her accounts had zero balances on both airlines but she was adamant that her Delta miles were “lifetime”.

    Anyway, I called Delta and they wouldn’t even talk to me unless I had a valid PIN. I finally had to say “Look, all I’m going to do is donate the miles and I don’t want to go through the effort of requesting a PIN if the account balance is zero. Can you tell me if it’s zero or not?” After some hesitation, the CSR did admit that the balances were zero and I permanently closed the Delta accounts.

    So exactly how does Delta and other airlines correspond with elderly passengers who are computer-illiterate and don’t receive mailed statements from the airlines anymore? They don’t, except through American Express or Visa credit card offers. I side with Karen Saper in this situation.

  • Carver

    @Arizona

    I don’t think the software license analogy works. Your experiences are with commercial licenses in which business are generally free to contract between themselves. By contrast, consumer contracts are generally rife with protections. The law understands the lack of parity between business and the public.

    An airline ticket is conceptually, if not legally, a consumer contract, and should be protected as such.

  • Arizona Road Warrior

    @ Carver, – “I don’t think the software license analogy works. Your experiences are with commercial licenses in which business are generally free to contract between themselves. By contrast, consumer contracts are generally rife with protections. The law understands the lack of parity between business and the public.

    An airline ticket is conceptually, if not legally, a consumer contract, and should be protected as such.”

    - – - – — – — – -
    You purchased a brand new PC and over the years, you purchased various software programs for the PC. You decided to purchase a brand new PC and sell your old PC. Legally, you can’t sell your PC with the software programs that you purchased and installed on it because you can keep the software install-CD or the software install downloaded file to install on your new PC; wherease, the new owner of your old PC will have a working copy of the software program without paying for it. In other words, there will be two different individuals having software with one paying for it.

    Most individuals do not read the EULA (End User License Agreement) that comes with software programs that they purchased and install via a CD, DVD or downloaded file.