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-Airline/Hotel credit cards where the points are deposited monthly into your airline/hotel account remain even if the card is no longer active, subject to the normal expiration dates listed in the chart below.
You will not instantly lose any earned Hyatt/Starwood/American/BA/Delta/Southwest/United/etc. points just for closing their credit card. Some representatives use scare tactics and say your points or tickets will be lost if you cancel the card but it’s just misinformation.
-Proprietary credit card point programs (American Express Membership Rewards, Citi ThankYou, Chase Ultimate Rewards) do not expire as long as you keep at least one card open that is enrolled in their respective program.
Below is a chart of 27 programs where you can easily see when your airline miles and hotel points will expire as well as where you can transfer points from which usually will extend the life of your points and miles.
See the chart and more info after the jump…
For example if you have a Chase Freedom card and a Chase Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card® Card card, you can move your Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card points over to your Freedom card and close the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card and not lose any points. Or you can downgrade your Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card to Freedom to avoid paying an annual fee and keep the points alive that way. Or you can transfer the points on the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card to programs like United, British Airways, Southwest, Korean, or Hyatt.
Once you close the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card you will retain the remaining points with your no annual fee Freedom card (or no annual fee Ink Cash card), but you will no longer be able to transfer the points to airlines/hotels.
However if you have or if you open another Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, Ink Bold card, or Ink Plus card in the future you will once again be able to transfer all of your points to airlines/hotels.
Another option would be transfer the points to your spouse if they have a Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, Ink Bold, or Ink Plus card to transfer the points to a airline/hotel program in the future when you decide which program to transfer to.
Find a mistake? Is your favorite program not on the list? Post a comment!
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22 Comments On "When Do My Miles Or Points Expire?"
All opinions expressed below are user generated and the opinions aren’t provided, reviewed or endorsed by any advertiser or DansDeals.
What about Emirates and Qatar? And Cathay Pacific?
In Air Canada’s Aeroplan, miles of children (below 18) do not expire.
How about adding how fast the transfer takes. Thanks for the post.
Dan,
Nice chart thanks so much…. I was wondering if you can color coat the transfer options or do another post indicating your thoughts on the value of the transfer option… Meaning a good transfer (good $ value) would be in green font, an ok transfer option would be in blue, and bad transfer option would be in red
MILES & MORE No Exp. if u have the credit card
Wow! This is amazing! What are the options of earning at least one mile on an airline? For example, to maintain United miles, must one fly to earn at least a mile or are there other options or tricks?
@newdanfan:
I am interested in this as well. I have 5K US Airways set to expire in 2 months. While not tha tmuch, would rather retain. How can I earn or spend 1 mile easily?
Britihs Airways miles expire when you cancel the card. I was even told that booked flights would be cancelled if I cancelled the card. Is that true?
@Shmuel2004: No
@Chaim:
The chart includes the most popular airlines.
There’s always google for the other hundreds of airlines.
@Uri:
Updated!
@Mosh:
Most AMEX and Chase transfers are instant though ANA and Singapore can take a day or 2.
Starwood transfers take from 2 days to 2 weeks, it’s quite variable and hard to pin down exactly.
@lotofsimcha:
What’s good for one person is bad for the next…
@MILES:
Updated!
@newdanfan:
You do not need to fly, lots of ways to get miles.
@jake:
I’ll make a post for you guys soon.
@Shmuel2004:
Lol, most definitely not.
That’s just a scare tactic. The correct info is in this post.
Dumb question: I keep seeing that people “SM” for more points. What does “SM” mean?
@Mendel:
http://www.dansdeals.com/archives/28466
do all programs(hotels/airlines/credit cards) warn you when points or miles are about about to expire?
@Davidd – no, they don’t – and many times if they do, those expiration warnings come from unfamiliar web addresses that always seem to end up in my junk folder…Awardwallet.com(and probably others) does keep track of expiration dates of most hotel and airline mile programs if you upgrade to their “plus” level, but not all.
Do i have to transfer Amex points to other account for it not to expire when closing a card, or is having another open card enough? If enough, can business hold for consumer and vice versa?
hi dan, is it still possible to get the chase united bonus offer of 50k and how?
so if i have delta amex miles, i was told they are not worth a lot, but i could transfer them into my startwood account and sell them?
What’s the best thing to do with my five-year-old’s 15,000 AA miles before they expire?
if i transfer from my spg acct to my wife is that like earned poin,and help out the activty
@papa:
Generally you just have one AMEX point account for all your cards.
If you have more than one than transfer before you close.
@danfan:
http://www.dansdeals.com/go/United1/
Add an authorized user and SM once you get it to be matched to the 55K+$50 offer.
@esther12:
Once they’re in Delta they can’t be transferred.
@Yaakov:
http://www.dansdeals.com/archives/30303
@modhe:
I don’t think that will count as earning or burning.
Dan, can you please post your ideas for tracking miles and expiration dates. Most programs have now starting excluding airline miles from tracking. what would you suggest is the best way to track expiration dates?
fix the jet blue info- miles dont expire..