Do Delta loyalty points expire?

SkyMiles is another famous frequent flyer program by Delta. As a member, you get miles each time you travel with Delta or avail services from the firms that partner with the company. These SkyMiles can later be used for free flights and other perks that the airline offers to its members. However, one question that often arises among the loyal members of SkyMiles is whether the Delta SkyMiles have an expiry date. Let's find out.

What are Delta SkyMiles?

Delta SkyMiles are the reward points or money, you acquire either on Delta Airlines or anywhere you come across Delta's partners. Your Medallion elite level, ticket price, and SkyMiles credit card used for your transaction determine the credit amount.

Members may spend SkyMiles, for example, to get free flights, upgrade tickets, Delta Sky Club memberships, and other benefits. Stated differently, SkyMiles helps you to save money for future travel expenses.

Do SkyMiles Expire?

Fortunately, Delta SkyMiles are not perishable; they do not have an expiry date. It is however important to note that for your SkyMiles account to remain active you are required to engage in some type of qualifying activity every eighteen months. This policy was established in 2011. The above policy has been in practice since the year 2011.

Some examples of qualifying activities to keep miles active include:

• Booking a flight with Delta or any of their affiliates
  
• Here are some examples of how people can earn miles: by signing up for and using credit cards that would give one's airline miles.
  
• Account creation, purchase or donation, or transfer of miles
  
• Charitable options which entail donating the miles for the benefit of charity.

As you can see from the above examples, it is quite easy to have some type of qualifying activity at least once every 18 months. You only need to make a flight booking periodically and ensure that you use your hard-earned SkyMiles before they can expire.

If Things Go Wrong and Miles Expire

This is the case because when you have not checked in to a flight, made a purchase, or engaged in any activity that earns you SkyMiles for 18 consecutive months, then your miles will be rendered inactive. On expiring, the miles cannot be restored to the account balance no matter the reasons behind their expiry.

To this end, notification in the form of an email to the member or notice on the member's online SkyMiles account will be made before the time those miles are due to expire. This will provide you with some indication, and a chance to act to prevent the expiry.

For instance, you can fly on Delta, transfer or buy miles, and connect a Delta cobranded credit card to the SkyMiles account. It does so in a manner to restart the 18-month expiration period all over again.

Is It Possible to Get Your Expired Miles Reinstated?

Sadly, the expired SkyMiles cannot be redeemed and reinstated but will remain expired permanently. This applied whether you had several thousand or even millions of miles on your account.

However, as for the expired miles, it is impossible to reclaim them, but you may begin accumulating them from the very beginning. For this reason, your SkyMiles membership still stays active to accumulate more miles on new flights and other purchases.

However, sometimes you may be able to recover the lost mileage number in the long run only. However, the actual expired miles are removed permanently and cannot be recovered any longer and thus cannot be used for future redemptions.

Precautions to avoid having the miles expire

Forgetting to have the correct qualifying activities every month or year is every SkyMiles member's nightmare. Here are some handy tips to ensure your miles never expire:

1. Make a note on a calendar when one needs to document a qualifying activity to reset the 18-month periods. Calendar Review: The next date would be at least 1416 months from the last activity to remind everyone.

2. Make sure that all your Delta flights have been associated with the SkyMiles account that you have. This includes the first tier bookings made to Delta or any other through online platforms such as Expedia.com.

3. Travelling should be done at least once in one year. For people in arrears to have qualifying activity, this is the easiest method to follow. You get to accrue more miles and at the same time, the time frame within which those rewards expire is replenished.

4. The option that can be linked to a Delta cobranded credit card is: All qualified transactions contribute to this goal of not expiring. Also, you get to earn the miles while you make your day-to-day purchases.

5. Ensure that the account is active. Delta displays the date of expiry of your miles on the members' only online SkyMiles account.

Can family members share the number of points they have accrued?

Another frequently asked question concerning this issue is whether family members can compile their accounts. However, one of the weaknesses of Delta is that one cannot transfer or pool his/her miles with someone else, or combine accounts.

The only condition that allows transferring of the miles is when you are married or in a domestic relationship, you can transfer the miles to the partner's account. However, for the other members of the family, their miles cannot be combined in the same manner.

Instead, family members have a few options to redeem miles together:

• Get each other award tickets to the destination of choice using miles
  
• Consolidate the pool of miles into one account through purchases, transfers, and gifts
  
• Transfer the miles to the same person in the family, as to combine them.

While these are not ideal, they permit families to use their accumulated miles for redemption, however under different accounts.

The Bottom Line

Delta SkyMiles can be considered semiflexible since they are valid for 18 months. As we mentioned before, it doesn't take much to have a qualifying activity to extend this period and avoid having miles expire.

Delta Skymiles… do not expire as long as you have flown on Delta, even once in every eighteen months, or have a Delta Skymiles credit card. Just be sure to look out for the expiration notifications just in case From the foregoing, the following research questions have been proposed:

With some practices that can help in the management of the account, you can benefit from the privileges of being a SkyMiles member without worrying whether the membership will expire in a few years. The miles that one flies so many trips for can be retained to be used for perhaps several years more.

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