~138,000 miles gone!

[-rce-]

My last job before retiring took me all over the country and world, traveling about 50% of my time.

I retired at the end of 2013 with ~138,000 RR points with all the honors.

After retiring, my wife and I moved over 1800 miles to a new city and rented for a year while our new house was being built.  Then there was another move and settling in, and some more settling in. And, a little more time went by.

After the two moves, some of the mail arrived at the new house, some never did. It’s hard to say if I got any written warning or not.  No one will ever know.

Anyway, I started seeing emails from Southwest now showing a zero mile balance.  WHAT?  All this time I’d been a better-than-average customer, retired, and since I was no longer traveling for a living, Southwest deems it ok to delete my miles.  So, that’s how you treat customers and now retired seniors?  To add insult to injury, I keep getting emails and mailings wanting me to get a Southwest credit card.  Really?

So, one day I called and asked if I got their credit card, would I get my miles back? We all know the answer to the question.  If I had, I wouldn’t be writing this.

I think it’s a really crappy policy and no way to treat people.

Is there really no way to get the miles back?

[chgoflyer]

The only way to get your points back is if you can prove that you had points earning activity in the past year that never posted to your account.

Otherwise, no.

Despite advertising that "points don't expire," they actually can disappear. Southwest requires point earning activity once every 24 months in order to keep your account active. Once the account is inactive, all points are forfeited. 😞

[CareforNOLA]

I have empathy for you because I lost 100,000+ miles on another carrier when my frequent flyer account was dormant for just 12 months and no, there was no written warning.  I definitely learned my lesson, and all the information was available to me in the rules (that I had admittedly not read in detail).  Now I sprinkle a few non-Southwest flights around my schedule during each year, and I have a credit card from another carrier for a few recurring charges such as the cable bill.

As soon as Southwest starts flying worldwide, I won't have to do that anymore.

If the 138,000 mile total would have been about 5 free flights, grab that credit card deal, and the sign-on bonus should make up for about half of your miles/flights.  Hopefully, Southwest's low fares will still let you do the traveling that you had hoped to do.  Because you are retired, keep in mind that the fares are typically much cheaper on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Enjoy your retirement!