- I canceled my American Airlines credit card because I haven't been traveling due to COVID-19.
- The airline sent me an email letting me know my 46,000 AAdvantage miles would expire in six months.
- You can keep your miles from expiring by either earning or redeeming any number of miles.
- Read Insider's guide to the best rewards credit cards.
Like many others, I haven't traveled in over a year due to COVID-19. Despite being a travel rewards junkie, I also closed a few of my travel credit cards with annual fees since I was no longer using them.
I kept my generic travel credit cards with more flexible rewards, like the
A few months after closing the card, I got an email letting me know that my American Airlines miles would expire in six months. My balance was 46,000 miles, so I definitely didn't want to let them go to waste.
I hadn't realized it, but it had been a year since I'd earned or redeemed American Airlines miles. Normally, these miles expire after 18 months of inactivity. Many airlines have extended their miles expiration policy due to COVID-19, including American Airlines. However, its extension is only until June 30, 2021, so my miles were still set to expire in August of 2021.
If I'd kept my American Airlines credit card, any spending I did with it would earn miles and count as activity. Since I closed the card, I had to find another way to keep my account active without traveling.
My options for renewing my American Airlines miles
To keep my miles from expiring, I either had to earn or redeem any amount of them. My options were as follows.
To earn miles:
- Take an American Airlines flight
- Make a purchase with a credit card that earns American Airlines miles
- Convert eligible hotel points (like Marriott Bonvoy points) to American Airlines miles
- Purchase miles
- Book a rental car, hotel, or vacation package through American Airlines
- Eat out using AAdvantage Dining
- Shop online through the AAdvantage eShopping mall
To spend miles:
- Redeem for an award flight
- Redeem for an upgrade
- Redeem for a rental car, hotel, or vacation package
- Donate miles
As mentioned, I no longer have an American Airlines credit card, otherwise, that would be the most obvious choice. I have no upcoming travel plans, so that rules out most of the other options.
American Airlines does have a deal with Hyatt Hotels, InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), and Marriott that lets you convert your hotel points from any of those three hotel chains to American Airlines miles. You can transfer a minimum of 5,000 World of Hyatt points, 10,000 IHG Rewards Club points, or 3,000 Marriott Bonvoy points at differing rates. This is a relatively painless option if you don't need your hotel points, but I didn't have enough to do this.
Purchasing miles is rarely a good deal, especially if you're not doing so to get enough miles for a specific flight.
This left me with three options for easy ways to earn or redeem American Airlines miles last-minute: eating out with AAdvantage Dining, shopping through the AAdvantage eShopping mall, or donating miles.
I ended up donating 1,000 miles to keep them from expiring
I first tried shopping through the AAdvantage eShopping portal. These shopping portals help you earn travel rewards on purchases you already planned to make anyway. That's why this is one of the best ways to keep your miles from expiring.
The AAdvantage portal has Sephora, so I bought some makeup I'd already planned on buying through it. However, I waited three weeks after my purchase and no new miles had been posted to my AAdvantage account. I did some searching and found lots of forum posts from people stating that it took two or three months for the miles from an AAdvantage eShopping purchase they made to post to their account. I didn't want to risk letting my miles expire while I waited for my earnings from the AAdvantage eShopping portal to post.
I considered trying the AAdvantage Dining feature. There were plenty of participating restaurants in my area, including ones I already dine at, and they even let you order online. However, I worried this would be another issue like the shopping portal in which my miles didn't post instantly.
I didn't want to have to check back every few days to make sure my miles were taken care of, especially because I can be forgetful. In the past, I've lost over 80,000 airline miles because I forgot to take care of making sure they were renewed. I wanted an easy and immediate option that wouldn't force me to sacrifice too many miles, and donating my miles turned out to be it.
You can donate as little as 1,000 miles, so that's what I ended up doing. I was able to choose between donating miles for social good, for global health, or for veterans and military members.
The miles were instantly withdrawn from my account, and it now shows them expiring on October 12, 2022, assuming I don't earn or redeem any American Airlines miles between now and then. This was a painless way to make sure I didn't lose my other 45,000 miles.
Elizabeth Aldrich is a finance writer specializing in credit cards and loans, retirement planning, investing, economics, and small business. She's an avid credit card points collector and perpetual traveler.
