Randy Petersen answers reader questions about how to maximize travel-related loyalty programs.

Dear Randy, I recently contacted United Airlines about my Mileage Plus account. I was told that they had cancelled my account because I hadn’t flown with them in three years. I do not recall any notification by United that they had changed their rules. The majority of my 345,000 miles were in their old program that supposedly didn’t have any expiration dates.

Just over three years ago, United converted the grandfathered miles in the Mileage Plus program into regular miles, which did have an expiration date. Many members thought that United, in their original program, said that the miles would be good forever. Actually, they simply said that you could use them into “the future.” Well, the future changed.

Unfortunately, you are not alone. We estimate that more than 63,000 members of United Mileage Plus who had original grandfathered miles that were converted into regular miles did suffer from some type of expiration. I have always advised members to use a selection of partners, such as dining, telephone and car rental, to keep accounts active. I especially like using car rentals for that purpose, since in today’s partnerships, there are not a lot of bonus miles coming from car rental partners.

Ask Randy.

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RANDY PETERSEN is publisher of Inside Flyer magazine and is president of Frequent Flyer Services. Email Randy at editor@executivetravelmag.com.