US Senator Charles Schumer is recommending a federal probe into consumer complaints that because of confusing frequent flier agreements flyers are losing millions of frequent flier miles. He has requested DOT (the Department of Transportation) review these complaints.
Consumer complaints range from miles expiring without understandable and advance notice, to changes in the value of miles.
Senator Schumer believes that regulations need to be written to establish industry rules pertaining to the management of frequent flier miles. When it comes to the management and redemption of miles, few restrictions currently exist.
To attract and retain as many fliers as possible, airlines make their frequent flyer programs sound lucrative and customer friendly to those looking for discount travel. Frequent flier programs continue to be popular with travelers given the rewards that can be earned.
Many an experienced traveler knows that today it is much easier to find cheap flights than to deem mileage for free tickets. Few things are more frustrating that having more than enough miles to purchase airline tickets only to find that no seats are available to use your mileage on the flights you want to take.
Often the only way to purchase an airline ticket using frequent flier miles is to spend twice the number of miles required to purchase a seat. Many airlines lift seat restrictions (often reserving only a couple of seats per flight that can be secured with frequent flier points) when customers spend double the published amount of frequent flier miles to secure an airline ticket.
There are over ten trillion unredeemed frequent flier miles currently outstanding, with an estimated value of $165 billion. Schumer says that 20% of these miles may never be used.
The real question is whether the airlines purposely structure their frequent flyer programs in a manner that makes it unlikely that many of the miles earned will never be redeemed.