Keep Your Points from Expiring

Earn Hotel Points Whenever You Can, Earn Miles for Every Flight (In as Few Accounts as Possible)

With most loyalty programs, if you don't have any account activity for a period of 12 to 24 months, you'll lose any points in your account.

Don’t let any claims that “your points won’t expire” lead you astray. All that means is that your points won't automatically disappear after a fixed time period, not that you won't lose your points if your account becomes "inactive". Very few reward programs let you keep your points regardless of the last time you took advantage of the program.

Fortunately, for most loyalty programs, it is relatively easy to hold onto your points. You don’t need to stay or fly. You just need to make sure that you earn or redeem some points (in one of many possible ways).

Bank-based reward programs like Ultimate Rewards, Membership Rewards, and ThankYou points work differently from airline and hotel loyalty programs. If you cancel your credit cards and you don’t take precautionary measures, you could quickly lose all your points in those programs. Don't Lose Your Credit Card Points When You Cancel Your Card

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Tracking your expiration status
Handling small balances
Keeping your points from expiring
What to do if a significant balance expires

The hardest part of making sure you don't lose your points is tracking when your accounts are going to become inactive. If you are frequently using a program, there isn’t much to worry about. But if you only use a program sporadically, you will need a way to get some advanced warning, so that you can take action to keep the account alive.

We recommend taking one of two approaches:

If you don’t mind spending $30 per year, upgrade to the premium version of AwardWallet. We recommend that everyone use the AwardWallet service and phone apps to keep track of all their account information. The premium version will update expiration dates for almost all your accounts and notify you when the account is close to becoming inactive. If you take this route, you may still need to manually monitor a few accounts that block automatic AwardWallet account updates.

If not, quickly scan through your programs every 3-6 months. If you don’t want to pay $30 per year, it isn’t that hard to periodically manually check the expiration status of each of your accounts or at least the accounts that have significant balances. We recommend periodically scheduling a few minutes to run through all your programs. Set up an actual event on your calendar for every 3, 4 or 6 months, so that you get a reminder notification.

If you are using the free version of AwardWallet, you can just click on each account to visit the corresponding program’s website and look for the expiration information. Then you can take action for any account which is set to expire before the next time you are scheduled to check.

Handling small balances

If you have tens-of-thousands of points from a credit card signup or some other source, you absolutely want to be sure your points don’t expire before you get a chance to use them.

But if you only have a small balance in your account, because of a single flight or a small number of hotel stays, you don’t necessarily need to bother keeping your account alive. Of course, losing any points hurts a little, so feel free to take advantage of the strategies below. Just don’t lose too much sleep about it.

Use your points to buy merchandise or gift cards. If it is unlikely that you will build up enough points for a hotel or flight award, you may be better off just using your points, if possible, to purchase merchandise or a gift card. On paper, the redemption rates for these types of purchases are almost always lower than what you can earn from a hotel or flight redemption. However, it is still a better choice than holding onto points you might not otherwise use—and having to take steps every now and then to keep your account alive. Redeeming for gift cards and merchandise is an option for almost every frequent flyer program, but it isn’t always available for smaller hotel programs.

Transfer your points to another program. Many hotel programs allow transferring points into airline programs; and some frequent flyer programs allow transferring miles into hotel points. On paper, the exchange rates aren’t very good. However, you are better off with a smaller number of miles or points in a program that you might use, rather than a larger number of points in a program you won’t.
Avoid the problem in the first place, by choosing miles, rather than hotel points, for infrequently used hotel programs. Many hotel programs will let you earn frequent flyer miles, rather than hotel points. On paper, this is usually a bad deal. The value you get from the miles is always lower than the value that you would normally get from the hotel points. However, if you are not going to be using the hotel program very frequently, you are probably better off with some miles in your favorite frequent flyer program, rather than a bunch of hotel points you might not ever use.
Transfer them to a friend. If you know someone who collects the points you have, you can sometimes transfer your points to them. Not every program will let you transfer your points to other people, particularly someone who doesn’t live at the same address and you may also be limited to increments of 1,000 points, making it hard to clear every last point in your balance.
Just let them expire. If there isn’t a convenient way to get some value from your points, it may not be worth the effort to keep your account alive. Just let your account reset to zero and don’t worry about it.

Keeping your points from expiring

For most programs, any kind of account activity is enough to hold onto your points. You just need to earn or redeem a few points. In many cases, transferring points in or out will also count. Fortunately, there are some easy ways to earn or spend a few points. Usually, if you can earn or redeem a single point, you will be set for the next 12-24 months.

Each program has slightly different rules. Don't just assume that any of the approaches listed below will extend the expiration date of your account. Some programs don't count transfers; some programs only count points you earn. Either confirm the program-specific rules before you act or confirm the updated expiration date afterwards.

Pay someone with the program’s credit card. If you have a co-branded credit card, any charge will add points to the corresponding loyalty program and keep it active. However, you may not get the points until the statement closes and you’ve paid your credit card bill, so make sure to do this a couple of months before you need the activity to show up. Since you should be making a few charges per year on any card anyway (so the card itself doesn’t get closed down because of inactivity), you should always be naturally earning points which will keep your account active. Sometimes, just having the credit card is enough to keep the points in your account.
Take part in a poll or marketing program. Several programs will give you small amounts of points, if you agree to participate by viewing ads or filling out surveys. While this isn’t a particularly good way to earn enough points for a free hotel night or airline ticket, it can be a perfect way to earn a few extra points to keep an account active. e-rewards is the major platform that powers most programs. In addition, the loyalty program itself sometimes is willing to give you a small number of points for taking some action, like activating their mobile app or signing up for email newsletters.
Make a purchase from the program’s shopping mall. Many loyalty programs have shopping malls where you can earn points for purchases from a variety of merchants. Every purchase will earn you a few points. Sometimes you can buy something as inexpensive as a single digital song for a $1 or $2. Earn extra rewards using Shopping Portals.

Purchase the smallest amount of points or miles. Most programs allow you to purchase small amounts of miles or points. Usually buying $10-25 worth of new points will keep your account alive. While the purchase rates are usually more expensive than you might like, the overall purchase amount is fairly low, and it is one of the most straightforward ways to keep your account active.
Buy magazine subscriptions. Due to the dynamics of the magazine industry, you can often buy a magazine subscription with points for rates which are more competitive than other types of purchases. Magazine subscriptions are also relatively inexpensive, so they are often a great option if you need to make a small purchase. Magazines for Miles allows you to pay for subscriptions using points from all the largest US airlines (except for Southwest). Just make sure to immediately call to cancel the auto-renewal or you might get stuck with outlandish charges for subsequent years.

Take advantage of a dining program. Many of the larger loyalty programs have a dining program where you can earn points or miles by eating at one of many participating restaurants. When you register a credit card with the service, you will automatically earn reward points every time you use that credit card at a participating restaurant. These are in addition to any normal reward points you would earn from the credit card itself. Because you can switch which airline or hotel program is associated with the card whenever you want, you can credit to whichever program requires some additional activity to keep your points alive. Earn Extra Rewards by Enrolling in Credit Card Dining Programs.
Make a small donation. Many loyalty programs have a way for you to “redeem” your points by donating them to charity. Often there is a substantial minimum, but some programs allow you to donate any quantity of miles or points, allowing you to keep your account active with very small donations.

Transfer points between members. Some programs allow you freely transfer points between members and count that as account activity. If so, you may be able to quickly sign up for an additional account for a family member and transfer some points to them.
Credit a car rental or hotel stay to a frequent flyer program. You can earn points with most airline and hotel programs via car rentals and you can earn points with most frequent flyer programs with hotel stays. If you are planning an upcoming trip, you may be able to easily earn points or miles into whichever program you need to keep active. Often you can credit a car rental you took months ago (assuming you didn't already register to earn points) to whichever program currently needs some point-earning activity.

Even if the hotel doesn’t allow you to earn miles directly, you can take advantage of Points Hound, Rocketmiles, or Kaligo to earn some miles with a hotel booking. Consider Booking with Bonus Mile Booking Sites to Get Thousands of Miles.

Transfer-in some flexible points. Many programs will consider a transfer of points into the program as account activity. You may be able to transfer Ultimate Reward, Membership Rewards, ThankYou Points, Capital One Miles, Marriott, or Diners Club points into the program. In many cases, the exchange rate doesn’t make sense for routine redemptions, but transferring a 1,000 of your flexible credit card points can be a better option than purchasing new points or taking advantage of one of the other ways to keep your account alive.
Take advantage of other earning or redemption partners. Each individual program probably has a set of other earning and redeeming partners. Buying something from any of them will usually keep your points alive.

What to do if a significant balance expires

If you take the appropriate steps, your account will stay active and you won’t lose your points. However, if you accidentally allow your account to become inactive, you may be able to get them reinstated. If you lost a significant amount of points, it is always worthwhile to call the program and throw yourself at their mercy.

They just may give your points back. Or they may ask you to pay a potentially worthwhile reinstatement fee or complete a “challenge” to get them back. Or they may politely tell you that you out of luck.