Friendly Reminder: CHECK your point balances regularly!
One of the sheets on my churning tracking spreadsheet is devoted to monitoring my point balances. Know how many points you have - the only way you'll know some go missing is if you know what the number should be.
There are numerous instances I can cite where this comes in handy:
- @Albort just today saying somebody drained his URs (now it's pretty easy to see if everything goes missing) BUT checking regularly means you'll catch this quickly!
- @elgerber (I believe it was her) had somebody fraudulently use AA miles I think. It took awhile to resolve but she was on top of it.
- @wendow had an issue with Southwest pulling the wrong amount of SW RR points when she made a flight change. At the time she was unsure of the exact correct amount and expressed that she wished she had an accurate spreadsheet at the time.
There's likely other instances that I'm totally forgetting. The key here is to have some mechanism to keep track!
I keep track of the
number of points I have and the
date I last updated that figure (so I can isolate when something changed). Additionally, I also track last activity and expiration in this sheet as well for programs that have expiration policies. I try to check this at a minimum once a month but it's not unheard of for me to check this weekly, because I'm kinda crazy with my points.
If you have 300,000 UR laying around that's $3,000+ in value. If you have 100,000+ SW RR points that's almost $1,500 in value. Just giving an example here to show that these points are worth something -
verify the accuracy of your accounts and treat them like you would treat cash in your bank account. It's sad but points fraud is out there, make sure you are protecting yourself!
