When Do My Frequent Flyer Miles Expire and How Can I Extend Them?

BY 

Stephen Au

- UPDATED: May 9, 2021   |    1

1. Travel

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Most of us have read in the news about frequent travelers who spend their entire working life building up a large balance of frequent flyer miles in hopes of using the miles in retirement, only to have their travel dreams crushed.

Most often, these individuals have accrued tons of miles but have neglected them for a short while. As a result, these currencies expire and your balance of miles goes to zero. Unfortunately, this happens quite a bit, and many people believe that the expiration is unavoidable.

Also, most people believe that in order to extend your miles, you have to fly on the airline again. In most cases, you’ll be able to reset the “expiration timer” simply by transferring a small number of credit card points to the airline. It’s a low-cost decision with a huge potential upside of salvaging hundreds of thousands of miles.

Let’s take a moment to introduce expiration policies and touch on why it isn’t as straightforward as it might seem. Then, we’ll get into the nitty-gritty and provide a comprehensive table you can use to reference expiration policies for both airline miles and hotel points.

Introduction

Expiration policies are imposed by airlines and hotel brands as an accounting measure. The vast majority of travelers will never accrue enough miles for a significant redemption through flying, and as a result, most frequent flyer accounts have residual, almost negligible amounts of miles sitting in their account with no clear means of use.

When airlines give miles to customers, they incur a revenue in their books. Conversely, when customers redeem airline miles, the airline incurs a liability in their accounting. In recent years, accounting practices have evolved such that the liability is significantly larger than it was before, due to something called deferred revenue accounting.

Now that airlines are faced with a large accounting liability for the miles that could potentially be redeemed, it is a financially sensible decision to close accounts, hence expiration policies that seem unfair to the consumer.

Who knew accounting practices for loyalty programs could get so complicated?

Depending on which airlines you earn miles on, you may be able to extend your miles if you have qualifying activity on your account. Savvy consumers take advantage of this fact and get ahead of this so they’re not surprised with a zero balance the next time they log in. Many times, transferring a nominal amount of credit card points, say 1,000 points, counts as a qualifying activity. 

Enough talk — let’s summarize the mileage expiration policies for all the major airlines.

A Complete Guide to Mileage Expiration for the Major Frequent Flyer Programs

Airlines With the Best Expiration Policies

The most ideal situation is you have miles that will never expire. Of all the major airlines out there, there are only a few with this generous policy: Delta SkyMiles, JetBlue TrueBlue, United MileagePlus, and Virgin Atlantic Flying Club.

When you consider all the amazing ways you can redeem Delta SkyMiles, JetBlue TrueBlue points, United MileagePlus miles, and Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points, you’ll see why many flock to these loyalty programs.

Airlines With the Worst Expiration Policies

The airlines with the worst expiration policies are:

• Frontier (180 days)
• Air Canada Aeroplan (12 months) and;
• Avianca LifeMiles (12 months).

Although these airlines have the shortest expiration timeline, you can extend the validity of these miles through qualifying activities.

Some of the airlines that have a hard expiration policy are Etihad Guest, Cathay Pacific Asia Miles, and All Nippon Airways Mileage Club. All of these miles cannot be extended. Considering how many fantastic ways there are to redeem Etihad Guest miles, Cathay Pacific Asia Miles, and ANA Mileage Club miles, this hopefully shouldn’t be too much of an issue.

A Complete Guide to Points Expiration For the Major Hotel Brands

Hotel Brands With the Best Expiration Policies

The program with the single best expiration policy is Best Western Rewards. Their points never expire, which is fantastic. The runner-up is Sonesta Travel Pass, which is valid for 36 months and can be extended with qualifying activity.

As far as the top major points-friendly hotel brands, IHG Rewards has the most advantageous policy for credit card holders — miles never expire if you’ve got Gold Elite status or higher. The IHG Club Premier Rewards Select offers Platinum Elite status, which is 1 level above Gold Elite status.

If you don’t have any hotel credit cards, the best expiration policies among the points-friendly hotel brands are Hyatt and Marriott Bonvoy, both of which have a 24-month validity period and easy ways to extend points expiration.

Hotel Brands with the Worst Expiration Policies

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the major casino brands, Caesars Rewards from Caesars Entertainment and M life Rewards from MGM Resorts International, have the worst expiration policies.

Both of these have 6-month expiration policies for standard members, which is extremely short.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, we analyzed nearly all of the major airline frequent flyer and hotel loyalty programs out there. With so much differentiation between terms and conditions of booking programs, it can be overwhelming trying to keep track of your points and miles.

That being said, what we’ve provided here is a one-stop-shop to find out when your miles and points expire. We’ve also provided you with some easy ways to extend/reset the expiration dates of the major miles. Some programs don’t allow mileage extensions at all, but others do.

Now you can rest easy and avoid the headache of trying to find out when your points expire!