Saw two award seats, transferred 60000 points out of my flexible currency to the airline programme, and by the time the transfer landed about 20 hours later the seats had gone. Points are now stuck in a programme I never use, and support told me transfers cannot be reversed. Is there anything to do here beyond waiting for other space to open up?
The transfer is not coming back, that part is settled, so the useful work is finding somewhere else to spend them.
Things that have rescued this for me:
The seats you lost were probably grabbed while your transfer sat in the queue. That specific pain is why the rule exists.
Found space eleven days later on a partner, one day earlier than planned, for slightly fewer points. Not the outcome I feared.
Partner space being better than the airline's own is the thing nobody tells beginners. The website search is not the whole picture.
Also worth checking whether that programme has decent short haul or partner redemptions you would not have considered. Sixty thousand miles sitting in an unloved account has sometimes turned into three domestic hops for me that I would otherwise have paid cash for.
Good point. The value of a redemption is what you would otherwise have paid, not what a chart says it is worth.
The rule to internalise from this, and everyone learns it the same expensive way: never transfer speculatively. Get the booking to the point where the only thing missing is the points, then transfer. If your programme allows a courtesy hold on an award, take the hold first.
Also know your transfer times before you need them. Some pairs are instant, some take one to three business days, and a few are unpredictable at weekends. Twenty hours is long enough for anything popular to disappear.
I did not know holds were even a thing. Adding that to my checklist along with the transfer timings.
Holds vary by programme and some quietly stopped offering them, so check rather than assume. But when they exist they remove this whole failure mode.
@deadline_dee · 5mo ago
Practical damage control while you wait: find out whether those miles expire and what resets the clock. Many programmes reset expiry on any qualifying activity, including a small shopping portal purchase or a magazine subscription for a few hundred miles. Losing them to expiry after all this would be the real disaster.
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