Exchange your expiring airline perks and hotel upgrades — here’s how

In the spirit of holiday giving, we want to know: Do you have an unused airline upgrade, drink voucher, lounge pass or another travel benefit you won’t be using that you could share with a fellow TPG reader before it expires?

We recommend first offering your expiring certificates and other perks to family members, co-workers and friends or seeing if there’s any way to take advantage of them yourself. Once you’ve determined you still have some that’ll go unused before expiring in the new year, you can consider sharing them with another reader — perhaps even swapping rewards.

Please keep reading to learn how to participate and benefit from someone else’s upgrade; follow our instructions below.

Related: How you can donate your points and miles to charity

What are elite upgrades and perks?

With elite status and the right travel credit card, you may have perks to share with a companion. For example, Alaska Airlines offers four upgrade certificates to MVP Gold, Gold 75K and Gold 100K flyers. These certificates allow you to secure first-class upgrades on economy tickets. These upgrades apply to the individual member, their companions or even other customers traveling independently.

As long as the “U” fare class is available, you can use these certificates on most flights operated by Alaska Airlines. Sharing these upgrades with eligible customers is simple, and they remain valid until Dec. 31 in the year you earned them.

Likewise, the United℠ Explorer Card includes two one-time United Club passes per year. You can give these to another person for their own United Airlines travel.

Here’s a more extensive list of various upgrades and perks that might be expiring that you can potentially share with another person:

• United Airlines PlusPoints: Premier Platinum and Premier 1K members receive 40 and 280 additional PlusPoints for qualifying for their respective status tiers. If you earned status in 2023, your PlusPoints are set to expire Jan. 31, 2025.
• Delta Air Lines Regional and Global Upgrade Certificates: Platinum Medallion and Diamond Medallion members who selected upgrade certificates as their Delta Choice Benefits for the status they earned in 2023 have until Jan. 31, 2025, to use their upgrades.
• American Airlines systemwide upgrades: AAdvantage Platinum Pro and AAdvantage Executive Platinum members who select systemwide upgrades as their Loyalty Point Rewards have one year from the time the upgrades are deposited into their AAdvantage accounts to use them.
• Hyatt free night certificates: Hyatt lets you gift free night certificates, such as Category 1-4 and 1-7 awards, suite upgrade awards, club access awards and Guest of Honor awards, to another person with certain provisions.
• Lounge passes, drink tickets and more: This category can include airline lounge passes issued as a credit card or hotel elite status perk and drink tickets sent in airline elite status welcome packets. These benefits expire on a rolling basis, so check the certificate to confirm validity before offering to share. Note that some may be shared electronically while others are only available in paper form and will need to be mailed.

Benefits of sharing expiring elite perks

If you have unused airline and/or hotel perks, why not gift them to a fellow TPG reader?

You can brighten someone’s day by sharing an expiring perk or upgrade, even if you’re not traveling together. You may even be able to ask if they can exchange rewards with you.

Best of all, there is no cost involved.

Related: Airline and hotel loyalty programs that let you give the gift of elite status

How to participate in TPG’s 2024 expiring elite perks exchange

First, make sure you’re following TPG on Instagram. You’ll see our post about sharing the holiday spirit there. Comment with what you have to offer, but please refrain from simply asking for things.

The point of this reward swap is giving. If someone does post something that interests you, please directly message the person.

Your offer cannot be sold or exchanged for money. Our Instagram reward exchange thread is to connect our readers with generous people within the TPG community. Additionally, TPG is not responsible for anything you give or receive through this exchange.

Bottom line

Our exchange allows travelers to share their expiring airline upgrades, drink vouchers, lounge passes and other travel benefits with fellow TPG readers. This way, you can ensure that these benefits don’t go to waste.

To participate in this exchange, follow TPG on Instagram, comment on what you have to offer and connect with others through direct messages. Remember, this exchange is solely for giving and cannot involve selling or exchanging items for money. TPG holds no responsibility for any transactions or exchanges made through this platform.

It’s the perfect opportunity to spread the holiday spirit and improve someone’s travel experience.