Because my friends aren’t frequent travelers, I don’t recommend to them that they keep up with all the latest travel blogs. (Sorry, Chris.) However, if one is ever confronted by the type of travel problem Chris deals with, I will try to give advice and then recommend Chris if all else fails. Perhaps Mr. Miller came to call upon Chris after being advised by a friend.

We very frequent fliers tend to look down our noses at the occasional leisure travelers who, “don’t take responsibility” for keeping up with the very latest in flier miles. Let’s all be kinder this year and cut those travelers some slack!

The bottom line is that Mr. Miller didn’t pay attention to his miles. When will people in this country start to take responsibilities for their actions or lack of actions?

If all of the 101,000 miles were the old ‘non-expiring’ miles, it meant that Mr. Miller probably hasn’t flow Delta for at least 12 years. I can’t recall when the current Sky Miles came out but I have a 1998 showing two totals…one for ‘non-expiring’ miles and one for the Sky Miles.

Mr. Miller could have owed up to his lack of responsibility and spent $ 53.75 and Delta could have reinstated his miles.

Mr. Miller or any FF member could do any of the following to keep their miles active with most airlines (you will need to check with your FF program)…here are some of the ways:
1. Use a few hundred miles and purchase a magazine subscription
2. Sign up their FF account at points.com (no costs)
3. Sign up for e-miles (no costs)…respond to surveys and earn miles for your frequent flyer program. The only cost is your time.
4. Sign up for e-Rewards (no costs)…respond to surveys and earn miles for your frequent flyer program. Again, the only cost is your time.
5. Sign up for the airline dining program (no costs)…assign your credit card(s) to your account and every time that you eat at a restaurant in the program, you earn miles. For a recent US Airways promotion, I spent $ 5 at a coffee shop and I earned miles for my account as well as extra miles for the promotion.
5. Use an airline affinity credit card.
6. Most airlines FF programs have their own shopping mall (i.e. US Airways Dividends Miles Shopping Mall) where you can purchase item like a $ 5.00 gift card from Sears to keep your account active. For example, there are over 100+ merchants on US Airways Dividends Miles Shopping Mall such as Barnes & Noble, Sears, Wal-Mart, Vera Wang, Disney, Williams-Sonoma, Walgreens, Office Max, Kodak Gallery, Snapfish and etc.
7. Purchase items from Sky Mall.
8. Purchase flowers from FTD.
9. Get a car insurance quote (no costs).
10. If you buy or sell stocks, mutual funds or etc., you can open up a Sharebuilder account or a TD Ameritrade account.
There are several ways to earn miles to keep your miles active without stepping a foot on the plane. For example, US Airways has over 100+ Dividend Miles partners (I stop counting at 100 and I was only a 1/3 through the list of partners).

Comments to the other posters:
@Sue – “I long ago gave up on airline loyalty programs. Unless you are a business traveler, there is no way you can accumulate any points of value from basic vacationing.” Depending upon the things that you buy and etc., you can really earn some mile. I know US Airways frequent flyers that earned 100,000 to 1,000,000 miles from the recent US Airways promotion (250% Holiday Bonus) without stepping a foot on the plane. For this promotion, I earned 75,000 miles and I spent under $ 500 dollars. We run everything (i.e. gas, day care expenses, groceries, telephone, cell phones, repairs, cable and etc.) that we can on our airline affinity credit card and we earn over 2,500 miles a month. Before my employer made it mandatory to use the company credit card, I use to earn over 10,000 miles a month.

@Justin – “… so long as they can continually piss off their loyal customers. If you figure 101,000 miles. The average flight being maybe 1500 miles round trip, that’s near 70 flights taken. 70 x say an avg of 300 per flight = 21,000 dollars spent with this company. Last I checked, that’s a pretty LOYAL customer….” Haven’t flown Delta in at least 12 years, I don’t think that is a loyal customer. I seriously doubt that Mr. Miller earned these 101,000 miles in one year…if he earned these miles over 5 years that is only $ 4,000 to $ 5,000 a year…I spend over $ 20,000 year for airline tickets.
@Caitlin – “Airlines in Europe, Asia and Australia are much better…” I agreed that the First Class and Business Class products and services for most international based airlines (i.e. Asia and Europe) are better than the US-based airlines with Asia based airlines (i.e. Singapore, Cathay Pacific, etc.) being the best in the world (which has been validated by various FF polls, surveys, third-party and etc.). The US based airlines are catching up but they have a long way to go. One advantage that the Asia-based airlines has is that they have less labor unions or no labor unions to deal with compare to the European and US-based airlines.

@Chris Elliott – “Delta should have told you about your expiring miles. It was wrong to deny your request.” Delta did…Mr. Miller didn’t read the communications from Delta, didn’t entered an e-mail address to his account when Delta stop mailing statements a few years (which was communicated) and etc.

MORT – NYC

I wonder if anyone should trust Mort given his attitude. I would not.

Airlines in Europe, Asia and Australia are much better. I’ve never paid for a meal or drink on board a flight and I’ve never paid to check in baggage. I’ve flown budget airline easyJet ex London a few times but it was a very short flight so I took carry-on bags and didn’t eat during the flight.

I’m a Qantas frequent flyer. I don’t “save” my points just as a matter of good practice, since things can change. I earn my points on international flights with Qantas or One World partners. Then I spend them when I go home to Australia, generally about once a year, to fly on flights between Sydney and Brisbane or Melbourne. I can usually find award flights a week or two in advance.

Like they are “DOING HIM” a favor… I love as a good gesture. It’s like me stealing your wallet, then giving it back with money in tacked. AS A GOOD GESTURE. It was your damn wallet to begin with, as these were HIS EARNED MILES. Call me skeptical, but it seems these companies simply don’t care, so long as they can continually piss off their loyal customers. If you figure 101,000 miles. The average flight being maybe 1500 miles round trip, that’s near 70 flights taken. 70 x say an avg of 300 per flight = 21,000 dollars spent with this company. Last I checked, that’s a pretty LOYAL customer….

A good way to do this is an airlines credit card partner. In Delta’s case it is AMX. ANY purchase automatically goes into your Sky miles account.

David Z’s 2nd post is correct. The 3 years has changed but any activity keeps your account alive, and if you’re not a true f.f. you need to keep on top of this.

I’m a Delta f.f. and I have had no trouble getting vacation flights. BUT – I also set them up 10-11 months in advance. Short term and holidays are going to be harder but that’s the “nature of the beast”.

I agree with Kevin M. I had old “non -expiring” miles that were folded into the new Skymiles and Delta was very good with notification of this and subsequent changes.

This gentleman did not pay attention. He could have kept his miles alive with his hotel stays but didn’t. He was sloppy and innattentive but got lucky thanks to Chris.

Lesson learned

It has been my experience that all vendors (airlines, hotels and car rental companies) have added expiration dates and require some activity to retain the points/miles. This changed several years ago so it’s not really anything new. I lost my AAdvantage miles a couple of years ago but I avoid AA anyway.

In regards to the comment made by Dang about about the Shock/deception when trying to redeem those points/miles I have to say that my experience has been just the opposite. I used some of my Delta Sky Miles (sky saver) to travel first class from Florida to California in August 2009, and I booked it about 1 month in advance. I’ve also used my Hilton Honors points for several free stays and also only booked those a few weeks out.

I’m sure if I tried to use those points on a holiday weekend my results would not have been the same but holidays are always times when all vendors (travel, retail, etc.) make their money.

MORT – NYC