Save Your Airline Miles Credit Card Rewards From Expiring

Some major airlines are now setting earlier expiration dates on airline miles. Airline miles credit card holders who do not fly on a regularly are in danger of losing their airline miles. With this happening, there are some relatively simple methods that cardholders can use to prevent their airline miles from being revoked.

 Airlines have decided to make their miles expire sooner since unused airline miles appear on the carriers’ financial statements. By reducing the number of miles to be redeemed, airlines can bolster their financial results.

 Among the airlines that have announced changes to their frequent flier programs, United Airlines said beginning at the end of 2007, miles that remain in accounts without being used or redeemed for 18 months in a row will expire, down from 36 months previously. On January 3, 2007, US Airways introduced a similar rule. Meanwhile, Delta Air Lines cut the amount of time its mileage accounts can remain inactive to 24 months from 36 months. Be sure to check your airline miles credit card issuer to make sure no changes were placed on your account.

But airline credit card users looking to keep their miles do not need to do much. One of the first things to do is to figure out how many miles they have with various airlines. By visiting the airlines websites, travelers can see their mileage balances and expiration dates. You can also pay a service like mileagemanager.com to consolidate various airline totals into a single statement and provide email alerts about expiring miles. Sometimes it is better to just get a credit card that can be used with any airline instead of getting credit cards from different airlines.

Every 12 months credit card holders can take a look at mileage expirations, focusing on those airlines whose miles will expire before the next checkup. These will be miles for airlines that have not been flown lately or whose credit card has not seen recent use.

Booking a flight with most major airlines, credit card users can earn miles that will reset the mileage expiration countdown. Remember you only can lose your airline miles if you do not use your airline miles credit card over the time period at all. So be sure to use it for purchases like gas or groceries. If you travel a lot and are in need of some activity you can often gain miles when paying for rental cars and rooms at hotel chains which the airline is in partnership with. This will let the cardholder select the airline to credit for the transaction.

Separately, eating at restaurants can help keep airline miles from vanishing. American Airlines, Continental, Delta, Northwest, United, and US Airways allow consumers to register credit cards or debit cards, which can then be used to earn miles when dining at a network of restaurants. The major airlines understand that you spend a lot of time eating out when you travel and want to give you an incentive to use the credit card. They will partner up with certain restaurants to intice you to use the card there.

Restaurants are listed by Rewards Network Inc., and at least one of its over 8,000 North American eateries is likely near to, or already visited by, the cardholder. A credit card or debit card can earn points in just one loyalty program at a time, including non-airline programs, such as Upromise, which Rewards Network also has as partners.

New account activity from paying for a meal or a rental car with an airline credit card can provide the cardholder with enough miles to redeem for a free ticket before the miles get taken back by the carrier, or can at least delay expiration. Miles can be earned through car rentals or eating at a restaurant in a network that awards miles with credit cards that include the Alaska Airlines Visa Signature, the United Airlines Mileage Plus Signature Visa Card, and more from the likes of American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, and US Airways.

Also, a large number of airlines let the consumer earn miles by shopping online using portals linked to the airlines website. A easy way to save miles is through a purchase at drugstore.com or iTunes, as well as by buying a gift card from the website of a store you often visit in person.

Since mileage redemptions also provide instantaneous reactivation for many airlines, magazines that cost fewer than 1,000 miles or the donation of miles to charity can count as account activity.

With some easy ways to save your airline miles from expiring, it is worth the time to keep from losing airline miles that could be worth way more when redeemed for a free flight.

Tags: Airline Miles Credit Card, Airlines Credit Card, Best Airline Miles Credit Card

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