In the previous post, we saw how to have a simple, home-grown rewards tracker where you just enter the program name and the expiration date. In this post, we will explore this more to make this productive, simple and actionable to you. One thing I have found to be very useful is having an online doc. That way you can access the document regardless of the device or the OS that you are on. I am usually on a ton of those and lots of OS in every single laptop and not to mention office and remote access. The doc itself, as we saw last time, need not contain any confidential data and just have the expiration dates across each program. Now as you enter this document, feel free to include any targeted programs that you think you might need in say 5 years from now. Alaska Airlines program is one such for me. It had 0 points for close to about a year and then got few hundred points from various promotions. I just plan to keep it open for few years and then scale it up as I plan a trip to Alaska. But I don't see that happening for years since I have a very specific Aurora related reason to visit Alaska. Not to digress but the time (specific month in a year) and duration ( new moon day) are highly limited. Hence, I plan for such trips and wait patiently accumulating points for such trips. Such programs can make entry into your excel so does the airlines that you might take weekly or regularly for business purposes or for visiting family.
Now, as soon as you enter these values in an excel document online, Immediately note it down in a calendar tool that you regularly use like Outlook or Google Calendar. Set a weekend entry for a month before that. This particular month, transfer some Membership Rewards or Ultimate Rewards points to the said account. Usually those are in increment of 1000 points. If that sounds too much or you are in no position to spare that much points, check the rewards dining program of the said program. Chances are it is enrolled in Rewards dining program - a concept in which you go to locally listed restaurant from their website and spend say 25 bucks. Since one dines out here and there, it is just a matter of choosing the right restaurant and then putting that money on a credit card. Make sure that you enroll this credit card in that Rewards program so that when you spend $25 dining out, similar amount of miles is posted in your enrolled rewards program. And you should see that the expiration date has been reset in your program by another year. It is a simple, quickest and most frugal way to keep your points alive. It is very efficient for long haul mile gatherers. I am targeting one United mileage account to have a million miles so that some day in future I can take a really expensive international air trip for free. Posting miles intermittently also has the added advantage that your account will live longer and have a larger shelf life. It is always nice when the customer service rep. says: "Thanks for being a member since 2002". They pay more attention to you and also might wink on that seat upgrade or give access to a lounge for free. Seriously, this has happened to me. Multiple times, JetBlue bumped to an earlier flight. American airlines gave me lounge access while Southwest gave free vouchers.
So keep them all alive if possible or as many do, just target a few and keep them alive. Personally, there are so many options out there and limited opportunities if you target a few that I think it makes sense to target all of the airlines. For instance, I am no fan of Delta or US Airways but their partners are pretty good and might fly on your route. But I do accumulate them if they are just a few clicks away. Better than me spending that time on Reddit or Wikipedia. Or you could always donate the miles to charities. So you always have the options down the line as to what to do with all those hard-earned miles :D.
Bottom line: The best two-way to keep your points alive: transfer from Ultimate Rewards or similar programs OR enroll your credit card/rewards program into a Rewards Dining Network program.
Some Dining Network link:
http://www.rewardsnetwork.com/ : American, Delta, United among others
http://www.rapidrewardsdining.com/: Southwest
If you have any suggestion to keeping your points alive, please put them in the comment section. Happy Dining for keeping points alive!
[…] gift cards and most importantly transfers to other partner airlines and reward programs. This is an extremely valueable tool to keep your reward points from expiring. The program itself is simple and easy to enroll and available with credit cards such as Chase […]
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