Mileage Reactivation Fee

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

I can fee for miles and miles! Consumers with US Airways Dividend Miles accounts may see their frequent flyer miles expire Jan. 31. The airline is planning to take back millions of miles from accounts that have been inactive for 18 months. But there’s a catch: US Airways promises to reinstate your account if you pay a $50 “Mileage Reactivation Fee” plus another fee of 1¢ per mile.

This is coming as a nasty surprise for many account holders, especially since some of them were told when they accumulated the miles that these were “lifetime miles” that could ”never expire.” Since 25,000 miles are the minimum to qualify for a free flight, the fees could equal or exceed the cost of buying a ticket without miles.

US Airways is not alone in pulling the rug out from under mileage accounts. In probably the most shameless example, Alaska Airlines states:

Mileage Plan miles are “immortal” and never expire….if an account is inactive for longer than 3 years, the Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan reserves the right to delete an account and reassign the number. Once mileage has been deleted from an account, it will not be reinstated.

So…immortality only lasts 3 years now? Guess if “50 is the new 40,” then forever must be the new 3.

If you’re holding a doomed mileage account, most programs allow you to make simple transactions to keep them from expiring. Buying magazines or donating a few hundred miles to charity can keep your account active. For US Airways, the cheapest method is to buy one song from iTunes at the US Airways shopping site. For $1, it’s the best way to delay your miles’ date of execution for another 18 months.

Signing up for 10 free miles through points.com may also do the trick. But the writing is on the wall: use your miles sooner rather than later, because miles aren’t like money in the bank. Frequent flyers with National, Legend, and—after its first bankruptcy—Midway each lost all their miles overnight, and there’s no guarantee this won’t happen again.

If you’re sick of expiration games and just want to wash your hands of your miles, you can donate miles to troops serving in Afghanistan or Iraq so they can fly home on leave.

What is your Fee of the Week? E-mail us us at the Hotline.