Guides

How to keep your child's miles from expiring

Jennifer YellinContributor
Jennifer is a contributing writer to The Points Guy where she focuses on family travel. She is also the founder of Deals We Like where she helps her readers travel on a deal.

January 19, 2021 • 7 min read

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Editorial note: This guide has been updated with the latest information. 

Quick summary

Many airlines have different policies regarding mileage expiration, with some U.S. carriers offering miles that never expire while others enforce expiration after periods of inactivity.
Children's frequent flyer accounts can be especially challenging to manage, as inactivity may lead to lost miles unless action is taken.
There are several ways to extend mileage validity without flying, such as redeeming miles for magazines, donating to charity or using airline shopping portals.
Purchasing miles is an option to prevent expiration but is generally costly and best used as a last resort.

What to consider

Expiration policies vary widely by airline, with some allowing extensions through account activity and others offering no way to extend.
Certain programs exempt minors from expiration rules, and pandemic-era changes may have temporarily altered some policies.
Shopping portal transactions can take up to eight weeks to post, so timing is important if expiration is imminent.

What you'll miss from the article

A detailed chart of major airline mileage expiration rules and step-by-step strategies to keep family accounts active.

Generated by AI with support from our editorial team.

One of my least favorite aspects of the miles and points hobby is keeping track of the travel rewards earned by every member of my family. Although some airlines permit families to pool miles into a household account, many U.S. programs do not.

While many airlines are now more flexible with expiration policies during the pandemic, it would be nice if all airlines got rid of their expiration terms permanently, as Southwest and United Airlines did in 2019. Two other major U.S. airlines — JetBlue and Delta — have offered this benefit for quite some time.

Before kids, it was much easier to keep track of my and my husband's accounts because our miles were typically never at risk of expiring. We used our cobranded airline credit cards and flew on paid fares for business travel, so our accounts remained active.

But now that we have two kids, the amount of work I need to do to keep track of all things points and miles has multiplied. If I slack off, the risk is losing miles to expiration.

Even if your children aren't earning a ton of miles and points, it's a shame to let any rewards go to waste. So it's essential to understand the airlines' rules for mile expiration. AwardWallet is helpful for keeping track of your family's loyalty program accounts.

Below you'll find a chart outlining airline mileage expiration rules. As mentioned, the pandemic has changed some of these policies temporarily.

Airline mile expiration rules

Airline	Expiration term
Aeromexico	24 months from last activity, can extend with activity.
Air Canada (Aeroplan)	18 months from last activity, can extend with activity.
Alaska Airlines	24 months from last activity, can extend with activity.
Alitalia	24 months from last activity, can extend with activity.
American Airlines	18 months from last activity, can extend with activity. Miles do not expire for members under 21.
ANA	36 months from earning, no way to extend.
British Airways	36 months from last activity, can extend with activity.
Cathay Pacific (Asia Miles)	18 months from last activity, can extend with activity. Miles earned before Jan. 1, 2020, expire after three years.
Delta	No expiration.
Emirates	3 years from earning, no way to extend.
Etihad	18 months from last activity, can extend with activity.
Flying Blue (Air France/KLM)	24 months from last activity, can extend with activity.
Frontier Airlines	Six months from last activity, can extend with activity.
Hawaiian Airlines	18 months from last activity, can extend with activity.
Iberia	36 months from last activity, can extend with activity.
JAL	36 months from earning, no way to extend.
JetBlue	No expiration.
Korean Air	10 years from earning, no way to extend.
Lufthansa (Miles & More)	36 months from earning, no option to extend. No expiration if you’ve held a Lufthansa cobranded credit card for three or more months and make at least one purchase per month. Expiration is also waived if you have Lufthansa elite status.
Qantas	18 months with no activity, can extend with activity.
Qatar Airways	36 months from earning, can extend by paying a fee.
Singapore Airlines	36 months from earning, no way to extend.
Southwest	No expiration.
United Airlines	No expiration.
Virgin Atlantic	No expiration.

Fortunately, even for kids, there are many ways to keep miles from expiring that do not require you to actually get on a plane. In fact, all of them can be done from the comfort of your home.

Extending the life of your child's airline miles

Purchase magazines

Many airline programs partner with MagsforMiles, which allows you to redeem your miles for magazine subscriptions.

While using your miles this way isn't typically recommended because it's a poor redemption value, it will register as account activity and reset your miles' expiration date for programs that simply require some type of account activity. (Even better, you can purchase a magazine subscription for as few as 500 miles.)

(Screenshot courtesy of Alaska Airlines)

Make a donation to charity

Probably the easiest way to keep your miles from expiring is by donating a set number of miles to a charity. Most airlines have this option, with donations starting at 1,000 miles.

For example, you can donate American Airlines miles to Miles for Heroes. Although this isn't the least expensive way to "spend" your miles to keep them active, you'll feel better knowing your rewards are supporting a good cause.

Certain mileage programs also offer the opportunity to earn miles by making a cash donation to particular charities. As an example, American Airlines has a partnership with Stand Up to Cancer through which you earn bonus miles for donating.

Use a shopping portal

Instead of redeeming miles to keep your account active, earn miles on purchases you are making anyway. Most of the U.S. airline programs have online shopping portals that allow you to earn miles for online purchases.

Essentially, you're just starting at the shopping portal site and being redirected to the retailer's site. Your purchase is tracked in the background, and miles are awarded based on the total amount purchased (usually excluding taxes and shipping fees).

Keep in mind it can take up to eight weeks for shopping portal miles to post to your account, so if your miles are about to expire in the immediate future, this option might not work. Also, if you're managing multiple frequent flyer accounts, be sure to log in to the shopping portal with your child's frequent flyer number so the miles will post to their account if that is the one you are looking to extend.

The credit card used to pay for the purchase does not have to match the name on the loyalty account.

Purchase miles

This method should be used as a last resort, but if you have miles and points that are about to expire, consider purchasing miles. Unfortunately, purchasing miles can be expensive — we are often talking about paying at least $35 for 1,000 miles. If you have a lot of miles or points expiring and it means your account stays active, however, it could be worth it.

Bottom line

There are a number of ways to keep your child's frequent flyer accounts active, so there's no reason to watch their miles disappear.

With just a bit of tracking and effort, your child(ren) can continue to earn miles in their respective loyalty programs, which might actually amount to a free flight one day.

Additional reporting by Chris Dong.

Editorial disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are the author's alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airline or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.

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