Don’t Let Your Points/Certificates Expire During Covid

I tweeted about this the other day but thought it was worth a bit more of a discussion, because I want to make sure you don’t let your points expire.

Covid has wreaked havoc on lives, businesses, governments, and nearly every other part of our world. As we slowly return to the “new normal” this year and beyond, many people will start to think about getting on a plane or staying a hotel again.

If you’re like me, and for your sake I hope you’re not too much like me, then you probably haven’t traveled much (or at all) for at least the last year. I hadn’t taken a big vacation for a while when Covid hit, but had one planned April 2020 and another planned for July 2020. So much for those plans…I had to spend weeks just trying to get refunds for the canceled flights. But eventually I did, and I either got cashed out or got points back. See this post for details of my refunds.

Other than that, I haven’t thought about travel other than daydreaming about it. I’ve been only skimming the travel websites I usually read to stay up-to-date on news, and I was happy to see pretty much all major loyalty programs extending expiration dates for points/miles and free night (or similar) certificates.

But now, the world is returning to normal. Businesses have been losing money and their goodwill will run out. In other words, your points and certificates will finally start to expire this year.

That means it’s time to log back in to Award Wallet and/or your actual loyalty accounts to take an inventory. Check how many points/miles you have, and more importantly, check the expiration dates. Do the same for any free night certificates or companion certificates you might have.

Here’s a cautionary tale. A few months back I knew I had Wyndham Rewards points set to expire for inactivity. Knowing this, I used their shopping portal to make a small purchase that I was going to make anyway from Home Depot, and I assumed the points would then be extended since it’s a qualifying activity. Unfortunately, those new points didn’t post until a couple of weeks after my other points expired. Once I realized it, I called Wyndham Rewards. After some pleading and speaking to a supervisor that wasn’t particularly nice, they reinstated my points with a warning of not to let it happen again. I was lucky, you may not be.

That story is to illustrate a point: don’t wait. Start early because it may take time for your qualifying activity to post and extend your existing points/miles.

Once you know your points/miles are safe and know what you have to work with, it’s time to remind yourself how to plan a trip. Where do you want to go? What countries will even let you in without a required quarantine? Keep in mind that Hawaii will be absolutely slammed with visitors since Americans don’t have many other options at this point (not to mention it was super busy prior to Covid anyway).

Then you can decide how to best utilize expiring certificates on those destinations, and shake the cobwebs to remember how to use your miles to get there. This is the fun/stressful part about our hobby, and you’ll probably have to brush up on the multitude of changes that happened over the last year. For example, if you have a ton of Amex points and utilize Aeroplan, you’re going to want to read up on what’s changed.

So please, don’t let your points expire. Book your travel early. Be prepared for potential rescheduled flights, just in case. But most of all…get excited. Travel is slowly returning, and that’s something we can all finally cheer about.