How I did it is beyond me. I thought I kept detailed records about expiration dates. I have always made sure to take some action when I received notices about my kids miles expiring. However, in this case, I must have missed the notice?? and had no record of the expiration date for my boys’ United MileagePlus miles that expired this past September.
When I recently went into all of our United accounts to make sure that we received credit for our United flights to and from LA, I noticed that I allowed about 18,000 miles to expire in both my boys accounts. United MileagePlus miles expire after eighteen (18) months after the last account activity in a member’s account. Activity includes flying, using your MileagePlus credit card, earning or redeeming miles with a MileagePlus partner, redeeming miles for award travel, buying miles or transferring miles. My boys had done none of that for the prior 22 months. (My daughter, Jessie’s miles did not expire because she flies United to Florida each year for swim meets)
The cost to reinstate my boys miles was $100 per account. I hesitated-$200! However, I then decided to look at the recent valuations of United MileagePlus miles. Those came in about 1.5 cents per mile. So their miles were worth $270. I knew that one day, I would definitely redeem those miles, so I pulled the trigger and had the miles reinstated. My mistake cost me $200 now, but I figured it would have cost me more in the future when I wanted to book United flights.
Ugh!
