Thread: American Airlines puts 18 Month Expiration on Frequent Flier Miles!

This really STINKS.

Travel | Grounded cruise ship will return to service in July | Seattle Times Newspaper


American Airlines cuts time to redeem flier miles

American Airlines wants to emphasize the "frequent" in frequent flier.
Beginning Dec. 15, travelers who have not used their American Airlines frequent-flier accounts for the preceding 18 months will lose their accumulated miles.

Previously, members of American's AAdvantage program had to generate some type of activity — typically by redeeming awards or earning new miles by flying American — every 36 months to prevent their accounts from expiring.

The change will have the most impact on customers who previously racked up miles but don't travel as much today.

American follows several other carriers, including United Airlines and US Airways, that announced similar moves earlier this year.

They're all trying to get away from handing out free travel. The restrictions on award travel are stringent already; this just makes it harder.

Chuck it is not as bad as one thinks. As long as you keep earning the miles they will not expire. They are just cutting back the months on inactivity. There are a lot of people out there who have accounts but don't earn the miles as much. AA is just scaling back if you don't earn any miles withing 18 months then the miles you do have expire. They are just encouraging people to earn the miles &/or redeem them. They are wanting people to travel by air more.

From AA.com:
AAdvantage members now must have mileage earning or redemption activity once every eighteen (18) months in order to remain active and retain their miles. Effective December 15, 2007, mileage balances will expire from AAdvantage accounts that have not had miles either earned or redeemed within the previous eighteen (18) month period. If the last activity in your AAdvantage account was prior to June 15, 2006, all miles subject to expiration will expire on December 15, 2007.

Living in DFW, we're lucky; American goes anywhere we need to go to catch our ship!

Heather, I was trying to look that up too. Thank goodness! And thank you for finding it.

Well I remember reading it in My last AA e-newsletter. I figured that it had to be on their website somewhere.

Thanks Heather! We earn miles all the time through flights but mainly a credit card. We use the credit card purposly to build up points. We were going to be OK anyway as we would have booked our flights for next years Med Cruise prior to the daeadline and used up the old points. That is obviously a poorly written article!