You have figured out your travel goal. You have signed up
for all of the free hotel and airline loyalty programs. You have signed up for
one or two credit cards. You may even have some balances in some of the programs
from a stay or two or a flight that you have taken over the past couple of
years. And is it ever a pain to track all of those different programs and your
balances, and when those points expire. That’s where AwardWallet.com comes in
to save your day. This is a free site that saves all of your membership records
and balances. It even tracks your credit card rewards and points, including
American Express, Discover Rewards, and Chase Ultimate Rewards. Yes, you will
have to share your username and password with the site. But I trust this site,
and it has simplified my life for me.
https://awardwallet.com/
With the free version, the expiration date is shown for only
the first five accounts. I have over 40 accounts. For me, it’s worth the paid membership
to see all of my expiration dates. The worst thing I could do is to qualify for
and receive my CC sign up bonus, and then let the points expire. So I pay for
the upgraded membership that allows me to see the expiration date for all of my
memberships.
“Ok, Jung, you seem to know what you’re talking about. But
is there anything I can do about my miles or points that are about to expire?”
Why, YES! There is something you can do. There are some,
like Delta, where the miles/points never expire so you don’t have to refresh
your account. Then there are some, like Choice Hotel points, where your points
will expire at a certain date, and there’s nothing you can do about extending
that expiration date. However, for the overwhelming majority of these programs,
you can refresh your account by showing ANY activity. For example, let’s say
you have 10K United miles that are scheduled to expire in three months. 10K is not
nothing. It is almost halfway to a round-trip domestic coach class United
flight. But you have no plans on flying a paid United flight any time soon. No worries.
As mentioned in my previous post about shopping portals, United airlines has
one. If you haven’t already created an account, do so using your United Mileage
Plus account as your username. Once you have created your account, do some
shopping. Once you buy one item through the shopping portal, you will receive
United miles for your purchase. I have found the points to post in about 2-3
months, so this is not a method to be used if your expiration date is just
weeks away. Another way of refreshing your account is to make a purchase with a
co-branded airline card. Even if the purchase is a $2 coffee, your mileage
account will be credited with two points, and your expiration date clock will
be refreshed.
https://www.mileageplusshopping.com/
As an example, I have about 160K Hilton points. These were
set to expire at the end of this year, and I had no plans on using them before
then. What to do? I received an email offer to purchase Hilton points. For $10,
I could purchase 1000 Hilton points. Normally, not the best use of $10, but this
refreshed my account and my expiration date is now 10/2015.
Bottom line: Sign up for an awardwallet.com . It does the
tracking of miles and points for you.
Caveat: For some airlines, you may have to download an
add-in. And for a couple of others, there is a method available where you can
have the loyalty program email your balance to awardwallet to be updated. But
those are advanced awardwallet topics.
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