Rules For Expiring Airline Miles In The Age Of Coronavirus

It was challenging to remember the mileage expiration policies of airline miles before coronavirus. Every airline has announced a different date when they will once again say accounts are inactive and remove all of the miles. Here’s a reminder of the current waivers for coronavirus and when they’re due to expire.

Here are the airlines whose miles do not expire:

• Delta
• JetBlue
• Southwest
• United

Here are the other U.S. airlines’ mileage expiration policies from the shortest to the longest and what changes, if any, they’ve made to their point expiration rules.

ALLEGIANT AIR – myAllegiant Rewards

The only way to earn miles in the myAllegiant Rewards program is to have their credit card. Canceling the card forfeits all remaining miles in your account. So I guess you can say there is no expiration policy or that the miles instantly expire.

Because of this, Allegiant hasn’t announced any extension to the expiration of myAllegiant Rewards points.

SPIRIT AIRLINES – Free Spirit

To keep miles active in Spirit’s program, you’d usually need to fly once every THREE MONTHS (you poor soul) or have their credit card and use it at least once EVERY MONTH.

Spirit has extended the expiration of points in their program until the end of September 2020.

All miles in your account as of March 1, 2020 will have their expiration date extended through the end of September 2020 (assuming you don’t use them sooner). We thank you for your loyalty and look forward to serving your travel needs.

FRONTIER AIRLINES – Frontier Miles

To keep your Frontier Miles active, you usually needed to earn miles every six months. During the start of the coronavirus epidemic, they sent an email to Frontier Miles members saying that accounts set to expire on or before April 30, 2020, would remain active.

I currently can’t find any additional information on their website about extending Frontier Miles accounts.

AMERICAN AIRLINES – Aadvantage

To keep your Aadvantage miles active, you need to earn or redeem miles at least once every 18 months.

American paused the expiration of accounts until June 30th, but now they’re back to canceling out accounts if you’ve not had any activity in the past 18 months, coronavirus, or no coronavirus. ‘Cause you want to get on a packed American Airlines plane right now, don’t you?

HAWAIIAN AIRLINES – HawaiianMiles

Typically, any earning or redemption activity will prevent your miles from expiring for 18 months.

Hawaiian has extended the expiration of all HawaiianMiles accounts until the end of 2020 (and found an easy solution to the tech difficulties of doing so.)

ALASKA AIRLINES – Mileage Plan

To keep your account active you need to have activity in it every 2 years, either by earning or redeeming miles. Doing so will prevent your miles from being removed from your account.

With a generous policy in effect under normal circumstances, Alaska didn’t make any changes to their points expiration policy due to coronavirus.

SUN COUNTRY AIRLINES – Sun Country Rewards

Sun Country has the most lenient expiration policy, except for those airlines whose miles do not expire. You don’t even need to have enough points for a free flight as you can use points to pay for part of a ticket or for baggage fees or seat assignments.

However, points in the program expire 36 months after they are earned, regardless of more recent account activity. No changes to this policy have been made.

Yes, but only 36 months after the date they were earned. Remember, you don’t need to acquire enough points to pay for an entire trip, you can combine them with dollars to pay or you can use them for bag options or seat selections.

Final Thoughts

The airline’s response to extending the expiration dates on miles has been a mixed bag. Some of the most restrictive programs have been rather lenient, while the more generous airlines didn’t make any changes to their policies. Only American Airlines was able to find a way to appear sympathetic at first but then manage to find a way to screw over passengers who can’t or don’t want to fly with them in the middle of a global pandemic

#stayhealthy #staysafe #washyourhands #wearamask

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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary