Eli wrote in a comment,
“My air canada miles are expiring tomorrow due to no activity do u know of any way i can keep them (with out things like donating) please let me know…Thanx”
Air Canada’s Aeroplan has the harshest mileage expiration policy of a non-LCC North American carrier.
Miles expire if there is no activity in a 12 month period, and they are removed 7 years after they were earned even if you do have activity within 12 months.
That being the case, it is well worth your while to credit Air Canada flight miles to another Star Alliance carrier, such as United.
There are good ways to get miles for free on AC, such as getting 1,000 miles for signing up for a free National Emerald club membership, but those are unlikely to post in time to save your miles.
I am not 100% familiar with the Aeroplan program, so I will lay out the options that work for the programs that I am familiar with, and hope that some of them work for you.
You don’t need to earn miles, you only need account activity to extend the life of miles, so here are some options to extend miles that are expiring soon:
1. Make an award booking: If you have enough miles to book an award ticket, that activity should extend the life of your miles. After the ticket is confirmed and your account is debited for the miles you can go ahead and cancel the ticket. The charge for this varies by airline, but averages $50-$100.
2. Buy miles: Most airlines sell miles for about 3 cents each. While it’s rarely worth buying enough miles for a ticket at that price, it is worth buying 500 miles to extend the life of all your miles!
3. Transfer miles: Most airlines allow you to transfer miles to family members or even other people at about 2 cents a mile. Just make the minimum transfer and you’re good to go!
4. Starwood: Transfer Starpoints into miles.
There are more options, such as opening up a credit card, but that is only an option when you have a couple months for the miles to post…
Good luck!
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13 Comments On "Help! My Miles Are Expiring!"
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I had the same problem a few months ago.
I bought flowers from 1-800-flowers and this kept my account active. The miles didnt post on time and my count was emptied of 75,000 but I called them and they said the credit will be post retroactively so after about 5 weeks, my account was back with the additional miles
I definately plane on using these for a ticket soon. If anyone wants to “use” them, please let me know
Any similar tips that might work for ElAl matmid points that are about to expire?
If you live in Canada, make a purchase at an Esso Gas station and let them swipe the Aeroplan card.
Zei gezunt and GL!!
Eli
i have had aeroplan miles cancel on me… i sent them a letter and they reinstated my miles
also aeroplan wont let you cancel a ticket – only postpone it
800-flowers is risky if your miles are expiring within 2 months, you may get lucky, you may not, so why risk it?
Also Air Canada does allow for reward cancellations, albeit with more restrictions and a higher cost than any other N.A. non-lcc carrier:
http://www.aeroplan.com/help/topic.do?id=3007
I had a similar case with jet blue. I opened a jet blue credit card to extend the life of my miles but by the time the points posted the old ones expired. I called them up and said I have a jet blue credut card and they gave it back to me.
I’ll tell you what I did – I went to points.com, and traded 20 of my AA miles for 1 Air canada mile. Thats it… my miles haven’t disappeared yet 🙂
My dad lost his aeroplan miles and I wrote a letter two months after he found out and they denied it. How did you get your points back?
hi i live in Canada, and i transfer all my amex points in my aeroplan account, it is instant and you only need a minimum of 1000 points for a transfer
I noticed that you mentioned united when you said to use a different star alliance program, is it the best? And if yes is it worth it to transfer points from usairways to united (if possible).
Do you know if there is any way to transfer mileage (from one program to another) other than points.com?
WARNING – points.com no longer allows AA -> aeroplan swaps… asiamiles is currently your best bet…