U.S. Senator Calls for Probe of Frequent Flier Programs

U.S. Senator Charles Schumer is calling for a federal review of complaints by consumers that they are losing millions of frequent flier miles without notice in confusing agreements.

Schumer wants to establish industry rules for frequent flier programs that are billed as a free benefit to help attract and retail customers. There are few restrictions now on how airlines can manage and redeem the miles. Read more.

How do I save expiring frequent-flier miles?

By Mike Grasso

As reported earlier this week on INflightOUT, American Airlines, following the lead of other airlines, began requiring timely activity to member frequent-flier accounts. Failure to comply means fliers risk loosing everything they accrued in their pot-0-miles.

Airlines no longer want to keep "old" miles on the books. If you flew to Europe in 1999 and earned no other frequent-flier miles in your account since, the airline wants to drop your account off its books. Those unredeemed frequent-flier miles represent a debt to the airline, much like an undeposited check. The miles and check both go "stale" after a while.

"Stale" miles equate to zero value nowadays. Depending on the airline, miles are forfeited for inactivity of 12-36 months. Don't let the miles go stale!

Any qualifying activity usually keeps those miles fresh. Back in the day, airlines required you to FLY to earn frequent-flier miles - ha, long-passed are those days. Today, you don't even have to visit an airport to earn airline miles. For example, you can earn miles for grocery shopping, video rentals, dry-cleaning, credit cards, school tuition, and car rentals, to name a few. Visit your airline's frequent-flier page, then click on the section detailing how to earn miles from other than flying.

Use'em or loose'em!