Delta Miles Won't Expire and SkyTeam Elite Plus Status for Gold Medallions

While redemption options on Delta continue to disappoint, the airline is taking steps to improve its SkyMiles program.

Delta SkyMiles will no longer expire. Up until this year, Delta miles expired after 24 months of account inactivity. The new policy will make it easier for casual flyers to build up larger account balances over the years (which you need for any sort of decent award redemption anyway…) and avoid wasting miles on gimmicks like newspaper or magazine subscriptions to keep their accounts active.

Delta also announced that starting March 1st, Gold Medallions will receive SkyTeam Elite Plus status when flying internationally on SkyTeam partner airlines. Significantly, that means Gold Medallions will now have SkyTeam lounge access when traveling on an international itinerary or an internal flight outside the United States.

I am now sitting on quite a few Delta miles courtesy of SunTrust and appreciate that I will not have to rush to use them.

Will the others carriers implement a similar mileage expiration policy?