How to keep your miles from expiring (domestic airlines)

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Unlike many international airlines, most of domestic airlines have a generous mileage expiration policy. In the recent years many (but not all) of domestic airlines switched from their award charts to dynamic pricing but silver lining is that by doing so they updated their mileage programs so that miles no longer expire.

In this article, we put together a list of domestic airlines, and major facts about their programs such as alliance attribution, miles expiration policy and easy ways of earning more miles or extending them if they expire.

Here we’re not going to talk about obvious ways of earning miles that can extend your miles expiration such as flying, since it’s, well, obvious. Most of the airlines offer a co-branded credit card from one of the major U.S. banks. These credits cards may come with perks such as a free checked bag or a lounge access on premium cards, but the actual mileage earning rate is usually somewhat mediocre and not worthwhile unless you’re really valuing those benefits or working on a signup bonus for a minimum spend requirement.

However, Chase, Citi, American Express, and Capital One offer an ability to transfer points to airline mileage programs from their premium cards such as Chase Sapphire Preferred (or Reserve), Citi Premier, American Express Platinum, and Capital One Venture X which normally resets your miles expiration date. These cards usually come with an annual fee so you need to do the math to figure out if it’s worthwhile keeping them after getting the signup bonus.

If you’re only interested in keeping your miles “alive”, and not really interested in paying an annual fee for an airline credit card there are other ways to do that, not limited to: answering a survey, shopping through an airline shopping portal, or dining in one of the participating restaurants affiliated with an airline of your choice.

Answering a survey

Many airlines offer a portal where you can sign up, answer a survey and earn a small amount miles for that. Usually it’s not worth doing since the return rate for answering a survey is pretty meager but it works great if you need to top off your miles for a redemption or extend their expiration date.

Shopping through an airline shopping portal

You can also sign up with an airline shopping portal, enter your membership number, and then you can start earning miles by simply shopping online when you begin your shopping session from the shopping portal. Usually it’s a good idea to compare the mileage that the shopping portal offers you using one of the shopping portal aggregators such as Evreward or Cashback Monitor. Just like with surveys, mileage expiration date can be easily extended in those programs that allow mileage expiration extension.

Dining with an airline dining network

Unlike answering surveys or shopping through an airline shopping portal, dining with an airline dining network actually requires you to leave your home which can be less convenient for some. Nevertheless, it’s worth noting here that earning miles through dining with an airline dining network requires virtually no work from you once you set it up.

When you sign up with one of the airline dining network portals, you need to enter your credit card information so that your credit card number can be associated with your profile. Once you do that, you can simply pay at a restaurant with the same credit card as you entered on the portal and miles that your earned will get automatically credited to your account.

Note that many airlines offer their dining portals through the Rewards Network platform, and they only allow you to attach your credit card to one airline program at a time. For example, if you first register your credit card with the United MileagePlus Dining and then sign up with the same credit card for Delta SkyMiles Dining, your card will only get attached to the Delta SkyMiles Dining network, so you won’t be able to double dip miles from both United and Delta the same time.

Alaska Airlines

Alliance: OneWorld
Program: Mileage Plan
Alaska Airlines Miles Expiration Policy: 24 months. Easily extendable.
Credit Card Transfer Partners: None
Other Transfer Partners: Marriott Bonvoy (3:1)

Alaska Airlines doesn’t have bank transfer partners which limits your ability to earn lots of miles easily. However, Alaska Airlines miles can be transferred from the Marriott Bonvoy program but the transfer rate is not great (3:1), so we wouldn’t recommend that unless you have a huge stash of Marriott Bonvoy points and have no use for them.

Despite lacking major transfer partners, there are some easy ways to extend Alaska Airlines miles expiration date:

American Airlines

Alliance: OneWorld
Program: AAdvantage
American Airlines Miles Expiration Policy: 18 months. Easily extendable.
Credit Card Transfer Partners: None
Other Transfer Partners: Marriott Bonvoy (3:1)

American Airlines is another domestic airline that doesn’t have any major bank transfer partners. Even though, Citi occasionally offers an opportunity to transfer ThankYou Points (TYP) to American Airlines’ AAdvantage program, it doesn’t happen very often. American Airlines miles can be transferred from the Marriott Bonvoy program but the transfer rate is not great (3:1), so we wouldn’t recommend that unless you have a huge stash of Marriott Bonvoy points and have no use for them.

Here are some easy ways to extend your American Airlines miles expiration:

  • Earn miles with an American Airlines credit card. Citi offers 1 business and 4 personal American Airlines credit cards and they have one without an annual fee (AAdvantage MileUp). There’s also a personal Barclays AAdvantage Aviator Red credit card that you can get for a good sign up bonus.
  • Earn miles by having a savings account with Bask Bank (for each dollar in your savings account you get 1 AA mile). American Airlines miles are often can be redeemed at more than 1 cent per mile (making this savings account an effectively 1+% APR account) which beats many savings account options out there.
  • Shop through the American Airlines AAdvantage Shopping portal
  • Dine with American Airlines AAdvantage Dining (Rewards Network)
  • Answer a survey on the Miles for Opinions portal

Delta Airlines

Alliance: SkyTeam
Program: SkyMiles
Delta Airlines Expiration Policy: Miles do not expire.
Credit Card Transfer Partners: MR (1000:1000)
Other Transfer Partners: Marriott Bonvoy (3:1)

Delta Airlines miles do not expire. Delta Airlines miles can be transferred from American Express Membership Rewards at 1:1 ratio. However, there is a gotcha: American Express charges a fee (0.06 cents per point transferred, with a maximum fee of $99) to transfer to domestic airlines. Delta Airlines miles can be transferred from the Marriott Bonvoy program but the transfer rate is not great (3:1), so we wouldn’t recommend that unless you have a huge stash of Marriott Bonvoy points and have no use for them.

How to earn Delta Airlines miles:

Hawaiian Airlines

Alliance: Hawaiian Airlines does not belong to an alliance.
Program: HawaiianMiles
Hawaiian Airlines Expiration Policy: Miles do not expire.
Credit Card Transfer Partners: MR (1000:1000)
Other Transfer Partners: Marriott Bonvoy (3:1)

Hawaiian Airlines miles do not expire. Hawaiian Airlines doesn’t belong to any of alliances, but
it has six partner airlines: China Airlines, Japan Airlines, JetBlue, Korean Air, Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia. Hawaiian Airlines miles can be transferred from the Marriott Bonvoy program but the transfer rate is not great (3:1), so we wouldn’t recommend that unless you have a huge stash of Marriott Bonvoy points and have no use for them.

How to earn Hawaiian Airlines miles:

JetBlue

Alliance: JetBlue does not belong to an alliance.
Program: TrueBlue
JetBlue Miles Policy: Miles do not expire.
Credit Card Transfer Partners: MR (1000:800), UR (1000:1000),
TYP (1000:800 – 1000:1000)

JetBlue miles do not expire and they are easily transferable from all of the major credit card partners.

How to earn JetBlue Airlines miles:

Southwest Airlines

Alliance: Southwest Airlines does not belong to an alliance.
Program: Rapid Rewards
Southwest Airlines Miles Expiration Policy: Miles do not expire.
Credit Card Transfer Partners: UR (1000:1000)
Other Transfer Partners: Marriott Bonvoy (3:1)

Southwest Airlines miles do not expire and can be easily transferred from Chase Ultimate Rewards. Southwest Airlines miles can be transferred from the Marriott Bonvoy program but the transfer rate is not great (3:1), so we wouldn’t recommend that unless you have a huge stash of Marriott Bonvoy points and have no use for them.

How to earn Southwest Airlines miles:

United Airlines

Alliance: Star Alliance
Program: MileagePlus
United Airlines Miles Expiration Policy: Miles do not expire.
Credit Card Transfer Partners: UR (1000:1000)
Other Transfer Partners: Marriott Bonvoy (3:1.1)

United Airlines miles do not expire and can be easily transferred from Chase Ultimate Rewards. United Airlines miles can be transferred from the Marriott Bonvoy program but the transfer rate is not great (3:1), so we wouldn’t recommend that unless you have a huge stash of Marriott Bonvoy points and have no use for them.

How to earn United Airlines miles:

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