Airlines are tightening their mileage programs, raising the rates, and setting expiration dates on unused miles. This has travelers looking for new ways to get additional miles, and to hang on to their old miles until they can finally reclaim them.
The Huffington Post recently addressed one of the frequent traveler’s most burning dilemmas: how do you keep your frequent flier miles from expiring?
Holiday Inn Express, Inverness, Scotland (Photo credit: Wikipedia)First, it’s a good idea to keep track of your miles, especially if you’re using more than one loyalty program. The article suggests AwardWallet as a helpful tool. It not only keeps track of your miles, but also alerts you when something is about to expire.
HuffPo also notes that most programs simply require some form of activity every 18 to 24 months in order to keep your rewards on board. And in some cases, not much activity at all is required in order to count. You can often find partners that work with the airline or hotel and do something simple, such as ordering flowers, to keep your miles active.
Best of all, all the miles renew when you do this, not just certain miles as many people think.
Other options include using a hotel or airline website as a shopping portal for your online purchases.
You can even trade miles around using an online travel point exchange, such as .
For instance, if you have 5,000 Holiday Inn Points and 20,000 Delta points, for around 10 percent of the points, you could transfer the Holiday Inn points to your Delta points account. This is very helpful if you have no upcoming plans to stay at a Holiday Inn.
It works almost like a co-op or a bank. The companies themselves aren’t working on these exchanges but simply allowing people to trade points via the website. It’s a really handy way to keep at least some of your travel points alive.
What are you doing to keep your travel points from expiring? Share some of your best tips with us in the comments or on our Facebook page.
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