With the pandemic making flying a less common endeavor, many of you might be wondering on how to keep your airline points from expiring when you don’t have any intention of travelling.
Having airline points expire is a very frustrating experience. Sometimes you end up missing the year-end deadline for the airline with which you’ve accumulated points, and other times, you see the deadline for points expiration coming and think (erroneously) that there’s nothing you can do to prevent the points from expiring because you’re not planning on booking any flights for the period of time before the points expire.
Here are three easy ways to not only help you from preventing your airline points from expiring but also earn up to 5X (sometimes more) the points per dollar spent. None of which require flying.
1) Have points that NEVER EXPIRE by picking the right airline program:
Most people are aware that airline points eventually expire; however, there are a few airlines around the world that have now adopted a “no expiry” policy for their airline points!
These are:
- Delta Airlines
- JetBlue
- Southwest Airlines
- United Airlies
- Virgin Airlines
As you can see, with the exception of Virgin Airlines, these are all US-based airlines. Many new to travel points believe that they can only join these airline points programs if they are based in the United States – or only fly with these airlines. This is not completely true. In fact, if you choose an airline that is part of the three major global airline alliances (Star Alliance, One World or Skyteam); not only do you not have to be living in the United States to join these airline programs, you don’t even have to fly with these airlines to participate in their points programs! For example, I live in Canada, and fly primarily with Air Canada, but I credit all of my Air Canada flight miles to the United MileagePlus program (as Air Canada and United Airlines are Star Alliance members – more on this later).
Benefits of Global Airline Alliance-based flying
Most major airline points programs in the world fall under one of three major “alliances.” Joining an airline frequent flyer program that is associated with one of the three major alliances has the significant benefit of allowing you to fly with all the airlines in the alliance, but credit the points to one program. This is beneficial so that you can accumulate airline points more quickly by pooling all your travel points with a grouping of different airlines so that you can gain enough points for redemption sooner, but also gain other advantages like Elite status with an airline more quickly. In this case you can see the advantage of global alliance member programs United and Delta over programs without alliances such – JetBlue, Southwest and Virgin – is that with the former, you can fly with 25 (United, Star Alliance) and 19 (Delta, Skyteam) different airlines respectively and contribute those points to one program – thereby having a greater chance of redeeming points sooner, whereas with the latter (JetBlue, Southwest and Virgin) you can only fly and accumulate points with one airline respectively.
The three major global airline alliances are:
Star Alliance (25 member airlines):
- Aegean Airlines
- Air Canada
- Air China
- Air India
- Air New Zealand
- ANA
- Asiana Airlines
- Austrian Airlines
- Avianca
- Brussels Airlines
- Copa Airlines
- Croatia Airlines
- EgyptAir
- Ethiopian Airlines
- EVA Air
- LOT Polish Airlines
- Lufthansa
- Shenzhen Airlines
- Singapore Airlines
- South African Airways
- Swiss
- TAP Air Portugal
- Thai Airways International
- Turkish Airlines
- United Airlines
One World (14 member airlines):
- Alaska Airlines
- American Airlines
- British Airways
- Cathay Pacific
- Finnair
- Iberia
- Japan Airlines
- Malaysia Airlines
- Qantas
- Qatar Airways
- Royal Air Maroc
- Royal Jordanian
- S7 Airlines
- SriLankan Airlines
SkyTeam (19 member airlines):
- Aeroflot
- Aerolineas Argentinas
- Aeromexico
- Air Europa
- Air France
- China Airlines
- China Eastern Airlines
- Czech Airlines
- Delta Airlines
- Garuda Indonesia
- ITA Airways
- Kenya Airways
- KLM
- Korean Air
- Middle East Airlines
- Saudia
- TAROM
- Vietnam Airlines
- XiamenAir
As you can see, each of the two major US-based airlines that offer no-expiry points is based with one of the different major alliances. JetBlue, Southwest, and Virgin Airlines are not part of any of the three major global alliances, so the next section will only apply to the United MileagePlus Program and the Delta Skymiles program – both of which are affiliated with a major global airline alliance.
How do you pick which airline alliance to join?
Look for an airline partner in one of the alliances that is based in the country of your residence. You can still fly with your home airline, but you would credit your points to one of the two US-based airline programs in the same alliance that offers no points expiry.
For example:
I live in Canada, and in Canada, we only have one major international airline that has alliance affiliation, and that is: Air Canada – which is a partner airline of Star Alliance.
Air Canada’s Aeroplan points expire after 18 months without activity.
Instead of joining Aeroplan, and having to make sure my points don’t expire every 18 months, I would, (and have) joined the United MileagePlus program instead. I’m not a US resident, and the majority of my flying still involves Air Canada – given that I fly out of Vancouver; however, I credit all my Star Alliance based flying (so any flights with Air Canada, United, Lufthansa, Avianca, COPA etc.) to the United MileagePlus program – and those points never expire!
Similarly, if you lived in say, France, and fly primarily with Air France – a SkyTeam alliance member, you can credit your points to Delta’s Skymiles program and your points will never expire. If you credit those same Air Frances Miles to Air France’s Flying Blue program, they will expire after 24 months. Again, you can still fly primarily with Air France in this case, but with the points credited to Delta’s program, you won’t have to worry about them expiring after 24 months.
Important Tip: Pick one airline program for each of the three alliances, and credit all of that alliance-based flying to one alliance. This way you don’t have middling points accumulating through different airline programs, and you’ll be able to redeem points, and even gain alliance airline status (for amazing perks like lounge access, free business class upgrades) sooner.
For example, I would pick United Airlines for Star Alliance, and credit any flying from Star Alliance’s 25 member airlines to the United MileagePlus program – that way none of my points will expire even if I flew those miles on Air Canada, Lufthansa, Air China etc.
Similarly, I would pick Delta Airlines and credit any flying from SkyTeam’s 17 member airlines to the Delta Skymiles program.
Unfortunately, the OneWorld Alliance does not have an airline partner that offers no-expiration on points, but given that the three major US-based airlines often compete with each other, one might speculate that American Airlines might follow Delta and United Airlines’ lead, and also offer non-expiration on their mileage program in the near-future.
Airline points programs are completely free to join, and you can signup in minutes. To find your desired points program portal simply google the name of the airline + frequent flyer program, and you’ll find the sign-up details for just about any airline program in the world.
2) Shopping through your airline’s e-shopping portal
If you’re a member of an airline that does have points expiry – I recommend you consider joining one of the points programs that don’t have points expiry if you’re an infrequent traveler to keep any airline points you accumulate in the future active indefinitely. If you still have some points with an airline program that you would like to keep active – whether you’re crediting future points to another airline or not – certain airlines have e-shopping portals where, if you login to your favourite retailer, (ie: Amazon, Apple, etc.) through the airline e-shopping portal, you’ll not only earn airline points to keep your airline points from expiring, they also have promotions that can be up to 5X (or occasionally more) points per each dollar spent!
For example, even though I had switched to the United MileagePlus program to credit all my air travel points, I still had a stash of Air Canada Aeroplan points, that I had collected (before I realized that the United MileagePlus program was actually better for Canadians). To keep these points active, I make regular purchases through the Aeroplan e-Shopping portal. Many common retailors such as Amazon, Decathlon, Sephora, Apple, Microsoft etc. are included.
You can see that the e-store has many different online retailers that most of us commonly use like Amazon, Decathlon, and Sephora. Oftentimes, there will be promotions where shopping through airline e-shopping portals can mean that you get as many as 5X the points per each dollar spent. Combine that with the fact that many airline co-branded credit cards also offer points per dollar spent, you can effectively double-dip on points by using airline-branded credit cards to shop at your favorite retailers through your airline e-shopping portals!
When you are planning to make a purchase at a participating retailer like Amazon, make sure you login to your airline e-shopping portal first, then click through to your retailer of choice to gain bonus airline miles on your transaction and also keep your airline points active and prevent points expiration without having to fly!
Taking the simple step of clicking through your online airline retailer’s e-shopping portal not only helps you maximize the value of every dollar spent shopping – you also can ensure that your airline points can remain active for airlines that allow you to keep point balances active just by making your regular purchases through the airline e-shopping portal.
As you can see, clicking through to your retailer of choice through the airline e-shopping portal will simply open up your retailer’s normal shopping page, where you can login and make your purchases per usual.
Here’s a list of different airline e-shopping portals: https://thepointsguy.com/online-shopping-portals/
Note: not all airlines will allow you to extend points expiry through e-shopping transactions. Some airline points will expire after a certain amount time without any method of extension. For example, ANA, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, Singapore Airlines, and Thai Airways are all examples of airlines whose points expire 36 months after earning them without any method of extension.
3) Get an airline co-branded credit card:
Another method of keeping airline points active if you are with an airline program whose points expire is to get an airline co-branded credit card.
For example Lufthansa’s airline points will expire 36 months after earning them. However, the expiration policy does not apply to holders of a Lufthansa Miles & More co-branded credit card.
Similarly, holders of a TD Aeroplan Infinite Visa will never have to worry about their Air Canada Aeroplan points expiring, so long as they are a holder of the co-branded credit card.
Use your airline co-branded credit cards through an airline e-shopping portal to “double-dip” on your airline points and also keep your points active.
Here’s a list of different other airlines with co-branded credit cards that you can use to keep your points balances active:
- British Airways: https://www.britishairways.com/en-ca/executive-club/collecting-avios/avios-expiry-rules
- KLM: https://www.klm.nl/en/information/flying-blue/creditcard
- Iberia: https://creditcards.chase.com/a1/iberia/100KN
- Qantas: https://www.qantas.com/au/en/business-rewards/earn-points-on-business-expenses.html?categories=cards-transactions-and-payments
Conclusion:
To conclude, my first recommendation is to first choose a points program with a no expiration policy on points. Among the 5 airlines that offer no points expiry, it makes sense to consider the two airlines that are part of one of the three global airline alliances: United (Star Alliance) or Delta (Skyteam), as then you can credit all your alliance based flying to one frequent flyer program, and also ensure that the points that you earn even on airlines who do have points expiry – will safely not expire when credited to an alliance partner without points expiry.
If you prefer to use a program that has points expiry, you can still keep your points active by using your airline’s e-shopping portal, or using an airline co-branded credit card.
While I have highlighted the value of no-expiry alliance-based programs like that of United MileagePlus and Delta Skymiles quite heavily in this article there are times, when it makes sense to go with different programs. For example, Air Canada and British Airways are both major alliance-based carriers that offer family sharing plans and are well worth investigating if you are a family with children, as you can pool family member points to redeem a flight more quickly. However, keep in mind that family sharing programs still may require you to keep each individual’s account active, or face expiry every year or so – depending on the program.
Another idea if you have children, is to open accounts for them under a non-expiry program, and incrementally save up their points for them – without worry that the points will expire – and give that account to them as a wonderful graduation present to see the world once they come of age.