hopscotch

US Air's CEO, a rather young looking and offhanded punk, was just interviewed on CNBC about the company policy of purging all FF accounts after 18 months of inactivity. He was evasive but the interviewer finally got it out of him that your miles are gone, although you can buy them back he said. The reason for purging the accounts, he said, was to remove a major liability from their balance sheet.

I've never flown US Air and never will.

BeachBoi

"a rather young looking and offhanded punk"...."Doogie", 43y/o, father of 3, is well regarded by the employees of the airline he runs, hands on style.Many firmly believe the airline would not be around had he not taken the CEO position just days before 9/11....

yestravel

Off the USAIR web site
http://www.usairways.com/awa/content...aspx#milexpire
"Reactivation policy
Active membership status is based on having earned or redeemed miles within a defined period as stated below. To keep your account active, be sure to fly US Airways, apply for a US Airways MasterCard or Visa credit cards, or earn miles with one of our over 50 other partners. Learn more.

Effective January 31, 2007, active membership status is based on having earned or redeemed miles within a consecutive 18 month period. With our new Mileage Reactivation Policy, Dividend Miles members have an opportunity to reinstate their Dividend Miles accounts to active status for an additional 18 months for a $50 processing fee and reactivation fee of $.01 per mile. If members do not extend with this reactivation option, the Dividend Miles account will be closed and all miles forfeited.

Members who have no account activity for a consecutive 36 month period will have their accounts closed and will forfeit all miles in their accounts. Once forfeited, miles cannot be reinstated.

Prior to the above policy changes taking effect, 36 consecutive months of account inactivity will lead to account closure and forfeiture of all miles."

AAFrequentFlyer

I don't fly USAir and maybe I'm misunderstanding the new policy, and if so please correct me, but it seems to me that the only thing that is changing is the length of inactive time. I believe all FF programs have inactive account closure time, but at the moment it's 3 years for most of the others.

If one does not have ANY activity in 18 months (flying, award ticketing, CC, IDine, flowers, shopping, hotel stays, online surveys, etc.etc...) then does one really have any interest in the miles?

yk

AAFF-

Yes, you're right about decreasing the time from 36 months to 18 months of inactivity.

This issue is actually affecting me somewhat (to a very minor extent). I used to live in Philadelphia and flew mainly USAirways. I moved to DFW over 2 years ago and have been flying exclusively AA. All my hotel, rental car, shopping etc bonus miles are going into my AA acct.

I have about 13K miles in my USAirways acct, and they will be "purged" in a few months. 13K miles is really nothing, but OTOH, maybe in the future I might move to a city serviced by USAirways? So I'm debating if I should drum up some activity (such as an upcoming hotel stay) and deposit it to my USAirways acct; or should I just let it go.

AAFrequentFlyer

It's a decision that only you can make, but 13K is 1/2 way there for a free domestic.

If it was me, I would find the cheapest way to bank some miles every 18 months. I used to do on line surveys with e-Rewards when they were more generous, but since they cut back, I stopped, but if my FF account needed activity, then I would do it again. It's totally free, well, except for the time you give up answering some marketing questions. It's not much mileage, but it still counts as activity.

GoTravel

There are so many ways you can earn free miles it would be a shame to let them go away.

Bank of America has a US Airways debit card.

hopscotch

BeachBoi: As for "well regarded by the employees of the airline he runs, hands on style." That sounds like control freak. Did you see the slick?

BeachBoi

hs....No I didnt.But I have a close friend who went to work for America West as Flight Attendant 3 years ago and at least most of those guys really like him.Well, he is "their" man, and according to my friend, the hard part of the merger with USAir, has been USAir, not America West.So getting that side to meld in, it has been a tough job and more control may have been needed.

lynnejoel1015

It's hard for us travel perk freaks to understand the business needs for an airline to stay afloat. A good CEO (and needless to say, a good CFO) needs to find ways to keep the liabilities down- and 18 months of inactivity seems fair to me.

Better that way of cost cutting than more lay offs or pension cutbacks.

rkkwan

Continental, while having the same 18-month inactivity clause, does not currently enforce it.

One of the reason why it may not be a good idea to purge those miles is this: the vast majority of those miles will never get redeemed anyways. These people don't even fly once in 1.5 years - how long will they get enough for a free ticket? Often it's "forever".

On the other hand, by taking away the miles from these accounts, they're angering those customers and some of them will never fly that airline, even if it's just once every 2-3 years.

[It's like me and hotel frequent-stayer programs. It's not like I'll ever get enough Hilton Honor points to get anything, but by closing my account, they certainly leaves a very bad taste in my mouth.]

lynnejoel1015

rkkwan, i was actually thinking about that point after i posted my response.

it's true.

however, still a liability on the balance sheets, and even if to make your financials better on "paper" the company will earn a better credit rating, etc.

but i totally understand and acknowledge your point.

AnselmAdorne

Not many here fly Air Canada, but they just announced two policy changes that are causing quite a bit of reaction among their "Aeroplan" members. The first change is that any account without a transaction in a 12 month period will be closed. You can, however, buy back your lost points should you wish.

The second change concerns the shelf life of your points. Starting next year, all points earned will be date stamped and will expire in seven years. If you do redeem any points, AC (or Aeroplan, actually) will use your oldest points first, of course, but this is still a shocker to those who are slow accumulators with a long-term goal of a big trip.

These new restrictions coincided with Aeroplan's offering of unrestricted access to any vacant seat on any flight. That's the upside. The downside is the price, which can be several hundred thousand points more than the traditional or "Classic" rewards, as Aeroplan calls them.

These changes are playing to very mixed views, and not surprisingly, a lot are negative. On a personal note, they don't bother me too much. I am at a point in my life where I am earning a lot of miles every year, but being retired, I also have complete flexibility in when I travel. I have had good success finding reward seats at traditional prices.

Anselm

yk

Just received an email from USAirways promoting their own shoppingmall website. I went ahead and bought some prints from KodakGallery. That should be all I need to keep my account "alive."

RonDace

I don't think an 18-month purge would affect my decision to stay with or not stay with a particular ff program. If I can't get and use the miles in 18 months I'm just not flying enough to make it worthwhile. I pretty much stay with UA and I've got 300K miles on the books now after using miles for 7 RTs to LHR or CDG and one RCC membership. I have a few miles with USAir but they're probably going to be gone real soon and I might have enough AA miles for one domestic trip. Purging the miles after 18 months just to keep from keeping track of them is probably not a big deal for people that use their miles quickly.

Sue_xx_yy

Anselm - What does AC consider a 'transaction' ? We usually fly at least once a year but due to my mother's worsening health we might miss a year. Can I buy some miles and call it a 'transaction'?

(Thanks very much for the heads up, by the way...)

AnselmAdorne

Hi Sue_xx_yy. In the eyes of Aeroplan, a "transaction" could be as little as adding (or liquidating) one mile. No problem if you have a year without a flight--they have a wide array of partners who give you Aeroplan points if you make a purchase. They're all listed on the AP site (www.aeroplan.com) and include car rental companies, insurance companies, numerous credit cards, and hotels, if I remember correctly. The easiest way, though, is through Esso, who offer one AP point for every $3 purchase.

Just a word of advice: if you decide to use any of these methods to add a point or more to your account, be sure to check your account balance a month later to see that the points have posted (you can check your balance through the AP site). I find Esso and my CIBC credit card work flawlessly, but one of the car rentals firms is pretty pokey in getting points to post.

To answer your specific question, could you buy miles to count as a transaction, I think the answer is yes, but I don't see that as a great deal. Much better to get them for free ... "Your money for nothing," as Mark Knoffler used to sing.

Anselm

AnselmAdorne

Knopfler, of course. One of the risks of PBC (posting before coffee).

AA

gail

Our son has 12,000 and he also just received a mailing with some magazines he can purchase with miles to keep his miles active - some taking only a couple of hundred miles.

Most of the magazines are ones I have never heard of nor want, but seems like an easy and mileage-inexpensive way to keep the miles alive.