“United wiped out 83,000 of my miles!”

Me too. Is this fodder for a class action suit? Is anyone working on it?

I spent hours on the phone, trying to recover 49,000 miles that United wiped out, without a letter, email, or offering options. Feeling better after being sick for 2 years, I wanted to use my miles to fly to Hawaii, and discovered the balance to be zero. Complaints fall on deaf ears.
I will never fly, or become involved with United. I will go to Hawaii, with a friend, and we will not buy a ticket on United.
I can not understand how their policy, provides the confidence, to ever use their airline.

Frequent flier programs are designed for just that, frequent fliers. I fly a mimimum of four flights a month a earn between 50 and 100 k miles a year. People who earned 25k miles over the past 10 years are not the target of these programs. It costs at least 25k miles to fly round trip domestically.

I just lost 62,392 miles on 12/31/07. The only way I found out was from an email showing my balance as of 1/1/08 of 62,392 miles followed up by an email correcting the balance to show zeoro. I know a lot of you are bashing those who had miles for 10 plus years and lost them. My last activity was two years ago and my understanding was that I had to show activity within 3 years. Since I did not travel for the t2 years, I was NOT informed of the change. Of course United said they informed us but judging by the posts, they did not do a good job of it. I bet it was buried in the ton of junk mail that they sent me. As for those saying we should just have opened a credit card with United: I along with others just don’t want another card to join my 4 other credit cards. I think that’s enough!

United really screwed their customers and I will be traveling from Hawaii to California and Texas in June on any airlines other than United.

I WILL NEVER FLY UNITED AGAIN EITHER. I lost 97,000 miles. I thought I had until the end of 2008. I never got anything from United saying my miles would expire at the end of 2007! What a bunch of thieves! Think about it… Why would they want to notify me if they could get me to forfeit the miles by not notifying me. They would not have to ever give me a free flight if I lost the miles. A plus for them. I will never fly them again. At one time is was Premier Gold (50,000 miles in one year with them), but now I guess Im chopped liver!

Hey Bob in Omaha - What airline do you work for?

United Airlines gave me the run around about expired miles. They gave me a 30 day window to show activity in my United account in order to renistate the miles.

I made a qualifying purchase at Land’s End through the United web site, and after two months, United still will not validate the miles. SCAM SCAM SCAM. Avoid United Airlines and their bogus frequent flier club…

US Air wiped out 23,000 miles of mine. Not the end of the world, but it was enough for a flight. I tried to work through their customer service, but got the run-around. It just doesn’t seem right that airlines can do this without notifying their customers. This is a good way to lose the few customers they still ahve.

As a frequent flyer, I have been forced by clients to fly USair because of the cost. The only problem, is that I would never use miles for anything else but a personal vacation, and I would certainly not risk my vaca by flying USair. I send my in-laws on vacations with my miles, and whatever happens, I have a smile.

I very much doubt that your miles were “donated”. The miles were donated to you in the first place for your business, the airline and the credit card company thank you for you gift of ignorance.

Gee, why not just add more miles on a regular basis and thus keep your account active? I use a credit card that gives me one mile on American for every dollar spent. I charge almost everything and pay off my bill in its entirely every month. And I fly free most of the time!

In fact, as a 100,000 mile a year flier, it still amazes me all the people who fly home for Christmas once a year and yell and scream about the so-called bad service they receive from airlines. You’ve got to learn to roll with the punches and not get irate about everything. Storms in Atlanta? Snow in Chicago? You’re screwed. No sense in yelling at the gate agent. It does you no good. Plan a little better next time and leave yourself a buffer for when the delays happen.

As far as Im concerned, if you go two years without flying, you really arent a “frequent flyer”. Miles dont expire anyway as long as you have some sort of activity, ie. flights, hotel credits, travel credit cards, mile redemption, the list goes on and on.

How very strange. I joined United Mileage Plus in 1994. I accumulated over 26,000 miles. They were never cancelled. I tried to use them over and over, but never found aiablility, until finally in May of this year, after adjusting my itinerary, I was able to use the miles. I donated the balance, knowing I would never fly United again. I joined Southwest’s Rapid Rewards in 1999, and have flown five free flights since, always finding a seat on my desired dates.

83k miles, at least 11 years old. A bank account untouched for that long would have long been turned over to the state. Give us a break.

People are treating miles like a savings account and not using them. It’s time the airlines recognized this and took action to reduce their outstanding liabilities.

Of course, you can use the system to your aadvantage if you use a miles card (such as Citi’s Aadvantage card) to accumulate miles by using it to pay for your utilities at a minimum (electric/gas/phone/cable/wireless). By accumulating miles, you extend the expiration of your miles.

Look, the answer is simple. Every airline has a “Magazines for Miles” program on their website. Buy someone you know a subscription to “Vanity Fair” or some other magazine and your account stays active for another 18-36 months.

OTOH, Northwest sent me a letter saying my miles were set to expire. One subscription to “Cigar Aficionado” later for my brother and the 19,000+ miles were back in the game. And I just so happened to fly on Northwest for the first time in 5 years about a month after this.

Well I to found that out rather recently when i went to upgrade a ticket to first class. Mind you I used to go out of my way to fly united to the tune of a hundred thousand miles a year for several years or at least enough hops for Elite class. In terms of loyalty for the busniness travler to an airline this has about erased it for me. When i do take the family of four on vacation or fly for business its whom can get me their for a reasonable fare and most direct route. Living in the northeast i am willing to drive anything up to eight hours at this point….they call this progress?

All you have to do is have activity on the acocunt within the 18 months. Which includes using a UA Credit card, rental car, flying, it’s not that hard to do that.

Larry - If I were you, I wouldn’t worry about it. 83,000 miles isn’t going to get you very far anyhow, considering a standard domestic flight will run 50k miles. Although it might be frustrating, it’s really not a very big loss. 83,000 miles over a career isn’t that much, so I think real business travelers would probably laugh at your complaint.

yup, us air wiped my mothers acctount out and said they e mailed ” everyone ” …sad, my 80 something mom does not have/use/understand email !!!!!!!!!! nuf said , cbr

THIS IS SIMPLY ANOTHER CASE OF CORPORATE AMERICA RIPPING OFF THE MORRAL MINDED AMERICAN WHO BREAKS HIS BACK TO PUT FOOD ON THE TABLE, WHILE CEOS MAKE 400 TIMES THE MONEY YOU DO.
THANX CORP. AMERICA AND THANX ELECTED OFFICIALS!

I just received a notice from Delta that my miles would expire. I used their option to donate my 19,000 miles to a charity.

The shortened expiration on miles is going to eliminate all but the most serious frequent flier. Moreover, I have to guess its going to backfire when in that when a consumer who had miles taken away has to buy their next plane ticket, it will not be with the airline that just stole their miles.