Expiry of AIR MILES reward miles

AIR MILES Reward Collectors are angry. As the fateful date of December 31, 2016 approaches, we’re seeing a lot of press articles blooming here and there – including the latest one on Protect Yourself that introduced milesopedia to many of you.

And after reading the comments we’ve been receiving, we thought it was important to clarify a few things about the expiration of AIR MILES Reward Program miles.

When will my AIR MILES miles expire?

As of 2011, AIR MILES Reward Program miles have a lifetime. They expire after 5 years whether your account is active or not!

Here we are in 2016, 5 years after this rule came into effect: we will therefore see the expiration of AIR MILES Reward Program miles accumulated in 2011 that were never used for rewards on December 31, 2016.

In fact, if you have used miles to earn a reward since 2011, the oldest miles were automatically used. As for expiring miles, they will be withdrawn from your account each quarter on a fixed date:

• March 31
• June 30
• September 30th
• December 31

So miles credited in January 2012 will be removed on March 31, 2017.

How do you know the exact age of your AIR MILES miles?

To find out when your account will expire, you can obtain a statement from the AIR MILES Reward Program.

Yes, you have to request a statement, it is not an automatic process! AIR MILES should have included this expiration information somewhere in the customer’s account… which would have “prepared” the collectors for 5 years. In our view, this is yet another argument that will be added to the many others in the class action lawsuit against the AIR MILES Reward Program managers.

Here is the procedure in detail.

Log in to your AIR MILES Reward Program account. You should see a banner at the top of the home page of this type:

Once you have verified that your email address is still good, submit the application.

Within 12 to 24 hours you will receive in your email box this long awaited statement.

As you can see, I applied for the statement in February 2016. No AIR MILES Reward Program miles will expire on December 31, 2016 in my account. Somehow… it makes sense! I started getting into the AIR MILES Reward Program earlier this year and have accumulated over 5000 AIR MILES with no effort or store purchases thanks to AIR MILES credit card sign-up bonuses.

Bottom Line

Contrary to some of the comments, no, all of your AIR MILES reward miles will not expire on December 31! Only a part of them (admittedly, one part too many!)

Be sure to check out our other AIR MILES articles for ideas on how to use your miles before the deadline!