Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan has made a change to the program’s account inactivity policy effective April 1, 2008. Currently, if a member’s account has no activity for three years, it becomes inactive. With the new policy, the account is viewed as inactive and the miles will expire when there is no mileage activity for the previous two years. The Alaska Web site states the change was necessary, “In an effort to reduce costs while minimizing the impact to our customers…”

As with other airlines over the last couple of years that have chosen to shorten the validity of miles, members of Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan need only have any mileage earning or award redemption activity to keep their account active, including earning miles with all specialty partners and transferring miles into or out of your account.

The first day that accounts will become inactive under the new policy is April 1, 2008, so members have until that date to ensure that there has been some type of activity in their account since April 1, 2006. If your miles expire on that date, you have up to one year to reinstate them for a $75 fee; but after one year, accounts will be deleted and the mileage will be gone forever.