Travel

Fasten your seat belts, and keep your air sickness bag handy. Travelers are about to be hit with a double whammy.

Not only is it often difficult to redeem your hard-earned frequent flier miles for the flight of your choice, but now the miles on some popular programs are going to expire much sooner if your account is inactive.

Both Delta and US Airways have quietly amended the terms and conditions of their frequent flier programs to cut the expiration of banked miles from three years to between 18 months (US Airways) and two years (Delta).

*MOUSE PRINT for US Airways:

Effective January 31, 2007, active membership status is based on having earned or redeemed miles within a consecutive 18 month period. With our new Mileage Reactivation Policy, Dividend Miles members have an opportunity to reinstate their Dividend Miles accounts to active status for an additional 18 months for a $50 processing fee and reactivation fee of $.01 per mile. If members do not extend with this reactivation option, the Dividend Miles account will be closed and all miles forfeited.

So not only will the miles expire in half the time, they are graciously allowing you to buy them back at a ridiculously high price. It is not clear if the new 18 month expiration period is retroactive.

*MOUSE PRINT for Delta:

Starting December 31, 2006, we’re modifying the above policy and miles will expire after two years of account inactivity. Mileage balances of members who have had no SkyMiles activity within the last two calendar years (2005 and 2006) will expire on Dec. 31, 2006.

Adding insult to injury, Delta is clearly making their policy retroactive to already earned miles.

The easiest practical way to keep your miles from expiring is to either spend some of them on cheap things like magazine subscriptions, or earn more miles by doing business with one of the airlines’ partners. Here is the US Airways partner list, and the one for Delta. Both allow you to make purchases from SkyMall, for example, and earn miles. You can also buy something at Officemax.com and earn US Airways miles, or join NetFlix and earn Delta Skymiles. Be sure to use the link provided at each airline’s website if you are going to shop at an online partner. Going directly to one of the participating online stores will not earn you miles.

The bottomline is that these changes are nasty, and exhibit a degree of chutzpah. The airlines make it hard to spend your acquired miles on flights because they don’t make enough free seats available, and then they take away your miles if you don’t use them.

For more details, here is a New York Times article on the subject.

Airlines always advertise a low price to get your attention, but when you add on all the required taxes and surcharges, the price often jumps up significantly. I wish airlines and other travel providers like rental car companies would advertise complete prices. That way, the price you see is the price you pay.

When British Airways advertised $219 to London including two nights hotel, MrConsumer thought it would interesting to see what the real total price would be. The actual price of the roundtrip using the advertised fare came to $551.77. Why?

*MOUSE PRINT: The advertised fare is “o/w based on r/t purchase. Taxes and fees extra.” [Banner ad at Bestfares.com June 22, 2006; shown actual size]

Somehow it doesn’t seem like a bargain any longer. How did they arrive at that higher fare?

The $219 advertised fare doesn’t seem to bear any relationship to the $308 actual roundtrip fare shown above. And, the fees, charges, and surcharges of almost $250 account for almost half the price of the ticket.

Now there’s another part to the offer: get two nights free in a London hotel.

*MOUSE PRINT: “**Based on double occupancy.”

What is not disclosed upfront is buried in the mouse print online:  if you are flying solo to London, “Single occupants are entitled to 1 free hotel night only.” 

So to get the advertised offer of two free hotel nights, two people have to go and spend $1103.54 to fly to London. That’s over five times the eye-catching $219 advertised price. The airlines would contend, if they advertised the real price, as shown below, no one would click. I wonder why? 

 

The price seems too good to be true. Only $49 to Bermuda (and back)? There has got to be a catch.

*MOUSE PRINT: “$49 roundtrip airfare is available with the purchase of a qualifying hotel package at a particpating hotel.” [Boston Globe, 02/06]

Don’t forget to add prepaid government taxes and fees of up to $89, September 11 fees up to $10, and passenger facilty charges up to $18.