Due to CoVid19, various airlines and loyalty programmes are shifting the goal post to ensure their members still have a sense of loyalty to them once this passes over. Hilton Hotels, Qatar Airways and Delta are some of the international examples, where airlines and hotels have extended status for a year and also ensured that no points expired.
Back home, Air India extended the status and froze expiry of miles till August 2020. Vistara took a more conservative stance in their favour and is allowing CV Points to expire.
Now InterMiles, the rewards programme owned by Etihad and Jet Airways is putting a pause on Mileage Expiry for miles expiring March 2020 onwards. Remember, InterMiles usually expire after inactivity over 18 months.
In a member communication rolled out today, InterMiles has confirmed to members that,
We recognize that current circumstances are extraordinary, and you would have had limited opportunities to take full advantage of the InterMiles programme, be it accruing or redeeming Miles across our extensive partner network.
We understand your needs and to support you, we have relaxed our mileage expiry policy.
From now until 31st July’20 we are suspending the expiry of Miles.
If you have Miles expiring soon, we are sure this measure will provide you with more time to use your Miles in the coming days.
Here are the T&C:
- Mileage expiry rule is suspended for all members from March 2020 to June 2020.
- Members with miles expiring in March 2020, April 2020, May 2020 & June 2020 will get an extension till July 2020.
- The next expiry rule will run on 31st July 2020. Members who have been inactive for the past 18 months up to July 2020 (February 2019 to July 2020) & have miles which are due for expiry will end up with their respective miles expiring.
- To avoid their miles from getting expired, members need to have an eligible activity in March 2020 to July 2020.
- Date of credit of miles will be considered while running the mileage expiry and not the activity date.
Bottomline
Earning InterMiles is still easy from your couch (pay bills via shop.intermiles.com, for instance), so perhaps you can anyways earn some miles over the time in Quarantine and extend the validity of your miles through the next 18 months.
Liked our articles and our efforts? Please pay an amount you are comfortable with; an amount you believe is the fair price for the content you have consumed. Please enter an amount in the box below and click on the button to pay; you can use Netbanking, Debit/Credit Cards, UPI, QR codes, or any Wallet to pay.
(Important: to receive confirmation and details of your transaction, please enter a valid email address in the pop-up form that will appear after you click the ‘Pay Now’ button. Even though the amount you enter has to be in INR, you may use an international card to process the transaction.)
We are not putting our articles behind any paywall where you are asked to pay before you read an article. We are asking you to pay after you have read the article if you are satisfied with the quality and our efforts.
Makes me wonder if there’s any point pursuing CV status and hoarding CV points having seen their insensitivity in times like these!?
Loyalty is both ways I believe!