NEW YORK (WPIX)—
Sen. Charles Schumer is sponsoring the first ever legislation to protect consumers' frequent flyer miles.Schumer urged the Department of Transportation Sunday to do a better job of notifying travelers about pending termination of their frequent flyer accounts, or the miles they have accumulated. At present, your account can be terminated and miles can be deemed canceled or expired with seemingly little or no notice from an airline, he said.
"As the holiday travel season approaches, we cannot let airlines and credit card companies continue to fly off with hard-earned, frequent flyer miles," Schumer said. He continued: "when a consumer accumulates valuable frequent flyer miles, they should not have to constantly worry that they are going to expire with little nor no notification from the airline. Playing games with frequent flyer miles takes money out of people's pockets, plain and simple. It's annoying, it's unfair, and it has to stop."
New Yorkers traveling all across the country have lost tens-of-millions of miles, because they have been rescinded by airlines and credit card companies. Experts estimate there are about 10 trillion unused frequent-flyer miles in circulation now, worth about $165 billion. Some estimate nearly 20% of those miles will never be used, due largely to confusing airline policies.
When frequent flyer programs were first created in the mid-1990s, miles had no expiration dates. Now, most airlines have a three-year, shelf life on them.
Different airlines also have different rules on when they can close a customer's account. Some say the airline can cancel after 12 months, and charge $50 for reinstatement. Others can cancel after 18 months and charge $1.25 per miles for a $25 fee for reinstatement. But, the biggest problem is that consumers are receiving little to no notice when their accounts are about to be canceled.
Schumer is now looking into whether the DOT is engaging in deceptive businesses practices, in addition to whether consumers have actually paid for the frequent flyer programs through air travel fees.
