- Day 1 – What’s Travel Hacking all about?
- Day 2 – Getting Organized
- Day 3 – Types of Miles and Points
- Day 4 – Credit Card Strategy
- Day 5 – Southwest Companion Pass
- Day 6 – Business Credit Cards
- Day 7 – Hotel Free Night Sign-Up Bonuses & Annual Certificates
- Day 8 – How to Apply & Track
- Day 9 – Not Instantly Approved
- Day 10 – Meeting the Spending Requirement
- Day 11 – Cancel or Keep?
Hopefully you don’t have this problem, but I want you to be aware that airline miles and points can expire. Each airline award program has different rules. The good news is that AwardWallet (Module 1, Unit 3) tracks and will notify you when miles are going to expire. Let me show you what it looks like:
While some airline programs miles don’t expire, othes expire after a set amount of time, but most only expire after a set amount of time if there is no activity on the account. Here is a list of major programs and their expiration rules:
| Airline Program | Expires without any activity in | Expires even with activity in |
|---|---|---|
| Air Canada | 1 year | - |
| Air France | 20 months | - |
| Alaska Airlines | 2 years | - |
| American Airlines | 18 months | - |
| ANA | - | 3 years |
| British Airways | 3 years | - |
| Delta | Does NOT Expire | Does NOT Expire |
| Hawaiian Airlines | 18 months | - |
| JetBlue | Does NOT Expire | Does NOT Expire |
| Korean Air | - | 10 years |
| Lufthansa | - | 3 years |
| Singapore Airlines | 18 months | 3 years |
| Southwest | 2 years | - |
| United | 18 months | - |
Since most programs will keep extending the expiration date of miles as long as there is activity on the account, it is fairly easy to have ‘account activity’. Let me show you a few ways:
- Use Co-branded Credit Card – for example if your Southwest points are about to expire and you have a Chase Southwest credit card, use the card to make a purchase. You will earn Southwest miles on the purchase and they will be transferred to your Southwest account on the next credit card closing statement. These miles earned are considered activity and will extend your Southwest miles for another 24 months.
- Shopping Portals – as discussed in Module 3, Unit 1 – you can earn airline miles with shopping portals – but be sure to leave enough time for the miles to post (usually 4-6 weeks)
- Dining Rewards – as discussed in Module 3, Unit 4 – register for an airline dining program that earns miles for dining at certain restaurants
- Car Rentals & Hotel Stays – as shown in Module 3, Unit 3 – use airline’s website to book a hotel room or car rental to earn airline miles and thus create ‘activity’ on the account
- Transfer Points – if you followed this course’s strategy, you should have many miles and points with the flexible currencies (Ultimate Rewards, Membership Rewards, etc) – transferring a small amount of miles (typically 1000 is the minimum amount you can transfer) to an airline program will create ‘activity’ on the account
- Buy Miles – while I usually don’t buy miles because of the price airlines sell them for, you can always purchase miles to create activity on your account to extend the life of existing miles.
- Redeem Miles – redeeming some of your miles will create activity on the account – you can redeem for a flight you were planning to book or another purchase at the airline’s website. Most airlines let you redeem miles for gift cards, products, even magazines. I used some expiring Spirit Airline miles for a few magazine subscriptions.
Keep Flexible Currencies From Expiring
With flexible currencies the rules for reward points is a little different since they are held at the bank. Let me try to explain each.
American Express Membership Rewards
Let’s say you apply for the American Express Platinum card and receive a 50,000 welcome offer/bonus. You used the card throughout the year have 60,000 American Express Membership Rewards in your account at the end of your first year. If you don’t want to pay the annual fee again and want to cancel the card you will lose the 60,000 Membership Reward points.
There are two ways to not lose these points – first transfer them to an airline partner. Once you transfer them, they are no longer Membership Rewards, but rather miles in whichever airline program you transferred them to. The second thing you can do is open another American Express Membership Rewards earning credit card.
American Express happens to have no annual fee ‘Amex EveryDay’ credit card. This card also earns Membership Reward points (and even usually has a small sign up bonus of 10,000 Membership Reward points after spending $1000 in 3 months). So as long as you have a Membership Rewards earning credit card open, you won’t lose the 60,000 points you earned with the Platinum card even if you close the Plantinum card.
American Express Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) Points
Even though SPG starpoints are considered a flexible currency since they can be transferred to multiple airline partners, SPG starpoints are just like any other hotel points. Once you earn them with American Express credit cards they are transferred to your SPG loyalty account.
SPG Starpoints will expire if your account is ‘inactive’ for 12 months. If you earn, redeem, purchase, or transfer any Starpoints or if you have a stay at an SPG hotel that your account will NOT be inactive.
Chase Ultimate Rewards
Each Chase credit card that earns Ultimate Rewards has it’s own bucket of Ultimate Rewards. Chase allows you to transfer Ultimate Rewards between different credit cards and even to a spouse or partner.
The Chase Freedom & Chase Freedom Unlimited cards both have no annual fees but earn Ultimate Rewards with a caveat. Chase Ultimate Rewards for the Freedom and Freedom Unlimited can only be redeemed for one cent and cannot be transferred to airline/hotel partners. If you want to transfer Ultimate Rewards to airline/hotel partners you must have an open premium Chase Ultimate Reward credit card (Sapphire Preferred, Sapphire Reserve, Ink Plus, Ink Preferred).
Citi ThankYou Points
Citi’s policy is the most restrictive. Thank You points expire if you cancel the credit card and don’t have another one that earns Thank You points with your rewards account. But even if you do have a Thank You point earning card (like the no annual fee Citi ThankYou Preferred Card) all points earned with the card that you closed expire 60 days from account closure.
Citi does allow you to share points with friends or family members but limits sharing to 100,000 points per calendar year and the points must be redeemed within 90 days.
Need to Knows
- AwardWallet is great at tracking expiration dates of miles and points
- Extending the expiration date of miles for most airline programs is fairly easy with ‘some activity’ on the account
- The flexible currencies have their own set of rules
