For those of us into collecting miles & points, one thing to always be on the lookout for is mileage expiration policies. Programs have different policies when it comes to whether miles expire, and if so, what activity will prevent your miles from expiring.
Even as someone who probably dedicates way too much time to loyalty programs, I’ve had airline miles expire on me, and it’s such a frustrating feeling. In this post, I’d like to take a close look at airline mileage expiration policies. When do airline miles expire, and what can you do to prevent them from expiring? In a separate post I looked at hotel points expiration policies.
In this post:
When do airline miles expire?
The major airline loyalty programs have varying policies when it comes to miles expiring. The policies most commonly fit into one of three categories (in order of generosity, starting with the best policy):
- Miles don’t expire, with no need for activity
- Miles expire after a certain amount of time, but only if you don’t have any account activity
- Miles expire after a certain amount of time, regardless of whether or not you have any account activity
With that out of the way, let’s look at the policies of the major airline loyalty programs.
Air Canada Aeroplan points expiration policy
Air Canada Aeroplan points expire after 18 months of inactivity. Any points earning or redemption activity resets the expiration of your points by a further 18 months.
Air France-KLM Flying Blue mileage expiration policy
Air France-KLM Flying Blue miles expire after 24 months of inactivity. Note that only select activity can reset the expiration of your miles, and that includes crediting a flight to the program, or earning miles with a co-branded Air France-KLM credit card. Other points earning activity won’t reset the expiration of your miles. Flying Blue elite members are exempt from having their miles expire, for as long as they maintain their status.
Alaska Mileage Plan mileage expiration policy
Alaska Mileage Plan miles don’t expire. However, if you don’t have any account activity for over two years, your account may be locked for security reasons, and your miles may be accessed by contacting Mileage Plan and verifying personal details.
All Nippon Airways Mileage Club mileage expiration policy
All Nippon Airways Mileage Club miles expire 36 months after they’re earned. This is a hard expiration, and there’s no way to extend your miles further. The only exception is for Diamond members and million miler members, as their miles never expire.
American AAdvantage mileage expiration policy
American AAdvantage miles expire after 24 months of inactivity. Any mileage earning or redemption activity resets the expiration of your miles by a further 24 months. Furthermore, AAdvantage members under the age of 21, as well as primary cardmembers on a co-branded American Airlines credit card from Barclays or Citi won’t have their miles expire, regardless of account activity.
Avianca Lifemiles mileage expiration policy
Avianca Lifemiles expire after 12 months of inactivity. Note that only earning miles will extend the expiration of your miles by a further 12 months, as redeeming miles doesn’t change your mileage expiration (unlike with most other programs).
British Airways Club Avios expiration policy
British Airways Club Avios expire after 36 months of inactivity. Any Avios earning or redemption activity resets the expiration of your Avios by a further 36 months.
Cathay Pacific Asia Miles mileage expiration policy
Cathay Pacific Asia Miles expire after 18 months of inactivity. Any mileage earning or redemption activity resets the expiration of your mileage by a further 18 months.
Copa ConnectMiles mileage expiration policy
Copa ConnectMiles miles expire after 24 months of inactivity. Any mileage earning or redemption activity resets the expiration of your miles by a further 24 months.
Delta SkyMiles mileage expiration policy
Delta SkyMiles don’t expire, regardless of whether or not you have any account activity.
Emirates Skywards mileage expiration policy
Emirates Skywards miles expire roughly three years after they’re earned. I say “roughly,” because in reality they expire at the end of your birthday month three years after they’re earned. In other words, if you earned miles on January 1, 2024, and your birthday is on April 1, then your miles would expire on April 30, 2027. This is a hard expiration, and there’s no way to extend your miles further without paying extra.
The only exception is that Emirates Skywards Platinum members aren’t subject to mileage expiration policies for as long as they maintain the status.
Etihad Guest mileage expiration policy
Etihad Guest miles expire after 18 months of inactivity. However, the only activity that can reset the expiration is crediting an Etihad or partner airline flight to the program. So any non-flying activity wouldn’t reset the expiration of miles, unfortunately.
EVA Air Infinity MileageLands mileage expiration policy
EVA Air Infinity MileageLands miles expire 36 months after they’re earned. This is a hard expiration, and there’s no way to extend your miles further.
Finnair Plus Avios expiration policy
Finnair Plus Avios expire after 18 months of inactivity. Any Avios earning or redemption activity resets the expiration of your Avios by a further 18 months.
Frontier Miles mileage expiration policy
Frontier Miles expire after 12 months of inactivity. Note that only earning miles will extend the expiration of your miles by a further 12 months, as redeeming miles doesn’t change your mileage expiration.
Iberia Club Avios expiration policy
Iberia Club Avios expire after 36 months of inactivity. Any Avios earning or redemption activity resets the expiration of your Avios by a further 36 months.
JetBlue TrueBlue points expiration policy
JetBlue TrueBlue points don’t expire, regardless of whether or not you have any account activity.
Lufthansa Miles & More mileage expiration policy
Lufthansa Miles & More miles expire 36 months after they’re earned. This is a hard expiration, and there’s no way to extend your miles further. The only exceptions are for Miles & More elite members, and those holding a co-branded Lufthansa credit card with account activity every billing cycle.
Qantas Frequent Flyer points expiration policy
Qantas Frequent Flyer points expire after 18 months of inactivity. Any points earning or redemption activity resets the expiration of your points by a further 18 months.
Qatar Airways Privilege Club Avios expiration policy
Qatar Airways Privilege Club Avios expire after 36 months of inactivity. Any Avios earning or redemption activity resets the expiration of your Avios by a further 36 months.
Singapore KrisFlyer mileage expiration policy
Singapore KrisFlyer miles expire 36 months after they’re earned, and that’s a hard expiration, meaning that activity doesn’t extend your miles further. The only exception is for PPS Club and Solitaire PPS Club members, as miles don’t expire for these members. One other thing to note is that members can pay to extend miles by six months, in chunks of 10,000 miles. The cost is $12 or 1,200 miles for every 10,000 miles extended.
Southwest Rapid Rewards points expiration policy
Southwest Rapid Rewards points don’t expire, regardless of whether or not you have any account activity.
Spirit Airlines Free Spirit mileage expiration policy
Free Spirit miles expire after 12 months of inactivity. Both earning and redeeming miles would reset the expiration of your miles, so even a basic redemption would help with this.
Turkish Miles&Smiles mileage expiration policy
Turkish Miles&Smiles miles expire 36 months after they’re earned. This is a hard expiration, and there’s no way to extend your miles further without paying a fee.
United MileagePlus mileage expiration policy
United MileagePlus miles don’t expire, regardless of whether or not you have any account activity.
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points expiration policy
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points don’t expire, regardless of whether or not you have any account activity.
How do you prevent airline miles from expiring?
Are you finding yourself in a situation where your airline miles are expiring imminently? As you can see, programs have varying policies, with some programs letting you extend the expiration of your miles in conjunction with account activity.
For those programs, what’s the easiest way to reset your airline mileage expiration? You’ll want to check the policy of each specific program, but here are some methods that generally work:
- Most airline loyalty programs let you donate miles to charity, so even a small mileage donation could reset your mileage expiration
- Most airline loyalty programs have online shopping and dining portals, allowing you to earn bonus miles for those activities; that would also reset your mileage expiration
- Most airline loyalty programs have co-branded credit cards, and any spending on those credit cards would earn miles that would reset your mileage expiration
- Most airline loyalty programs sell miles directly to consumers, and even buying a small number of miles would reset your mileage expiration
- Several airline loyalty programs partner with major transferable points currencies, and transferring a small number of of points would reset your mileage expiration
- This is the most obvious, but redeeming miles for a flight, or taking a flight that earns you miles, would also reset your mileage expiration
If you have any airline miles that are close to expiring, just keep in mind how long it could take for miles to post to your account as qualifying activity. For example, if you spend money on a co-branded credit card, it could take weeks before those miles post to your airline account (it usually takes at least until a few days after the statement closes). Meanwhile donating miles to charity, buying miles, or transferring points from another currency, is typically a near instant process in terms of resetting expiration.
Bottom line
Miles earned with airline loyalty programs have varying expiration policies. Some programs don’t expire miles even without activity, other programs only expire miles if you don’t have any activity for a certain period of time, and some programs expire miles after a certain amount of time regardless of activity.
For airline programs that let you reset miles with activity, fortunately that’s quite easy to do, as generally any mileage earning or redemption activity would qualify. Just make sure you always keep an eye on expiration policies.
What has your experience been with airline miles expiring?
Breeze Airways points expire after 24 months after earned. Can not be extended, but never expire if you have their credit card.
The expiration of miles is a way for the airlines to make more money ensuring that you cannot use them after that time or forces people to use their miles sooner.
Does the donation of miles extend Lufthansa miles expiry? I see a program for donation on the Miles&More website, but no details if this would work...
Afaik LH miles expire 36 months after they're earned, independently of activity
I had something odd happen to me with Cathay Pacific miles. Please bear with me, as my memory is not what it used to be!! I had planned a trip to Bali, and had used some Alaska miles for a Biz Class ticket on Cathay. I can’t remember exactly when it was, but it was during Covid. Bali closed down, and our trip was cancelled. I left the miles with Cathay. There was a point...
I had something odd happen to me with Cathay Pacific miles. Please bear with me, as my memory is not what it used to be!! I had planned a trip to Bali, and had used some Alaska miles for a Biz Class ticket on Cathay. I can’t remember exactly when it was, but it was during Covid. Bali closed down, and our trip was cancelled. I left the miles with Cathay. There was a point where Cathay had restrictions put on it by China. So I just let the miles sit there for a long time waiting for China to clear Cathay. I was then notified that my 70K or so miles were due to expire. And that I could order something from their “store” to get points so that my miles would not expire. I purchased something for over $50. But my miles disappeared from Cathay anyway. I (finally!) started investigating. I read that one had to buy something for over $600 (!!!!) on their site to meet the requirements for not losing your miles. At that point, I was furious with Cathay, and especially with myself. I gathered all the info together and was planning to fight back. But I never did anything to fight back, figuring that it wouldn’t help anyway since I hadn’t spent $600 in their store. A year or more later, I was checking out mileage that I had in all of my airline accounts. I discovered that the $70k miles had REAPPEARED back into my Alaska Account! I used those miles as quickly as I could!!! Has this happened to anyone else?
Correct me if I’m wrong but making a purchase with a cobranded Flying Blue credit card does NOT reset the clock (at least on previously transferred miles)
Is "earning miles" the same as transferring credit card points into miles?
I was close to having my American miles expire and I set up the dining advantage program linking my credit card. So, it becomes a no-brainer to constantly have a small amount of activity just by dining out.
Another easy way if you ever need it, is Shell rewards, which can automatically be converted to AAdvantage. So just buying gas at a Shell station and typing in your membership number at the pump, will refresh your mileage, and they appear on your AA account pretty quickly (says 2 weeks, but usually only takes 2-3 business days, in my experience).
The Asian star alliance carriers are a true disappointment.
I'd be interested in building my Star miles with Singapore or EVA, but their expiration dates make that a non starter.
Unless they have changed the rules, although Southwest Airlines points do not expire, the whole account does, which means that there is no place for the points and they disappear. Ask me how I know
Air Canada Aeroplan points expire after 18 months of inactivity. Any points earning or redemption activity resets the expiration of your points by a further 18 months.
Does doing charity donation resets this limit?
Although I haven't done this specifically with Aeroplan, I have with several other programs and it has worked for all of them
If you have a family pool account (like with BA or AC), redeeming for one member resets expiration for everyone in the pool, correct?
An OK out for singapore miles is to transfer to Virgin Australia. It's 1.55:1, but there are some compelling redemptions via that program (esp on united).
Extremely valuable post, thanks Ben.
For Canada, if I redeem and then cancel an award will that extend the miles validity? How much would a cancellation cost me.
I flew where Canada on revenue last month but credited it to United without thinking through the expiration policy.
Regarding Avianca's LifeMiles, transferring miles to it will also reset the expiration date.
The best way to extend Avianca miles is to make a hotel booking through them for Lifemiles, and then cancel it. Worked for me this year.
Noteworthy Aegean miles never expire ever.
Maybe less used by most of this audience, but Air Astana also has a Lufthansa-like strict expiration policy (24 months from the top of my head).
if you transfer avios between BA, Qatar, does it reset the expiration?
As far as BA is concerned, I assume the transfer from QR to BA falls into the category of an Avios earning.
Alternatively:
- any Uber ride would get you a few Avios (assuming your accounts are linked) and reset the expiry of the whole balance (and they credit instantly)
- from the shopping portal, you may earn Avios from Sainsbury purchases (the only catch is that it doesn't credit instantly, so I wouldn't count on it if mileage were to expire next month)
I'm currently with CX and one way that I earn miles and not let it expire is by filling out their survey; you'll earn a certain amount of miles if you fill out the survey 80% of the time. I'm probably getting the numbers wrong, but it's close to it.