How I lost several thousand American Airlines miles

Several airlines have introduced expiration dates for miles in accounts that remain dormant. In American Airlines' case, if you earn miles and have no activity in your account for 18 miles afterward, your miles will be removed from your account.

This just happened to me.

Fortunately I have so many miles in other places that it's not a major deal -- but it's something you should be aware of.

How can you avoid it?

Pretty easily actually...

All you have to do is earn or redeem miles in some form to keep your account active. You don't have to fly to do this.

Ways to do it include signing up for a credit card like the Citi AAdvantage Master Card (which gets a nice 25,000 bonus) -- or using a few miles for a cheap magazine subscription.

Or, transfer miles from another program. The Starwood hotels program lets you do this one for one so you don't dilute anything. You can learn more about it and its Starwood Preferred Guest American Express credit card here -- my favorite points reward card.



So check through your accounts if you have major balances to make sure they aren't dormant!