In a surprise announcement today, United Airlines made it effective immediately that MileagePlus award miles do not expire. Previously, MileagePlus miles expire after 18 months of account inactivity.

See United’s official announcement here:
https://hub.united.com/united–mileageplus-miles-never-expire-2640082775.html

United now joins Delta Air Lines, who made the same change to their SkyMiles program back in 2011. It will be interesting to see if American Airlines follows suit.

This is a welcoming change to those who fly United infrequently, as well as to those who earn or redeem MileagePlus award miles once in a while. Members no longer need to worry about forgetting when their miles expire, redeeming their miles on a flight they didn’t plan on taking or making a minor purchase on the MileagePlus shopping portal when they did not plan on buying anything just to keep their account active. In the past, if your account is dormant (if you earn or redeem 0 miles) in the past 18 months, you lose all your miles and your balance is reset to 0; and it usually cost you to reinstate your miles. Although United has a ongoing promotion where you can save 30% when you reinstate your expired MileagePlus miles.

Personally. I like this change a lot as I have a lot of MileagePlus miles that I don’t need to use immediately; unlike Signapore Airlines’ KrisFlyer, (KrisFlyer miles expire after 36 months from the month of their accrual) Which I will write more on later.