When do your Accor Live Limitless points expire? How can you stop it?

I receive occasional emails from readers asking ‘How can I stop my Accor Live Limitless points from expiring?’ or ‘When do my Accor Live Limitless points expire?’. This new series looks at the major hotel loyalty programmes and shows you how to keep valuable points intact.

EDIT:  Le Club AccorHotels was rebranded as Accor Live Limitless in January 2020.  Nothing changed about expiry rules.

If you need to refer to this article in the future, there is a link to it on our ‘Hotel Offers’ page in the Le Club AccorHotels section. This also includes details of current Accor promotions.

About Le Club AccorHotels

Le Club AccorHotels is the hotel loyalty scheme for the Adagio, Fairmont, Ibis, M Gallery, Mercure, Novotel, Raffles, Sofitel, Swissotel and Pullman brands, amongst others.

When do Le Club AccorHotels points expire?

According to the Le Club AccorHotels FAQ here :

Status points and nights earned at the end of an eligible stay or after payment of an event (in the context of the Meeting Planner offer) are valid until the 31st December included, following the date of check-out.

Rewards points are valid for 12 months after your check-out date.

This validity period is extended by 365 days each time a stay/event resulting a credit of Status points is recorded on your account. Your Rewards points expire without notice and without the possibility of restoring or transferring them if no stay is recorded in the 365 days following your last stay.

Your Rewards points expire without notice and without the possibility of restoring or transferring them if no stay is recorded in the 365 days following your last stay.

Once you have agreed to receive electronic communications from the Le Club AccorHotels programme, you receive two reminder emails, 3 months and then 1 and a half months before the expiry of your Rewards points.

That sounds quite strict ….

It is. Every other hotel scheme we have looked at in this series so far has simply required some sort of account activity, either by earning or redeeming points. It was possible to obtain these via a partner without having to complete a stay.

Accor is different. You need to complete a stay – according to the rules.

I should say that, as of the publication date of this article, this is not how it works in practice. Earning Accor points from ANY source seems to reset the expiry date.

Accor could change its position at any time.  I have also had a couple of emails recently from readers who DID lose points despite having some activity on their account.  In any event, there are very few ways of earning Accor points without doing a stay. The main ones are:

transferring points from the eRewards market research scheme (but this is ‘invite only’ membership)

by making an online purchase via the Accor Collections shopping portal, but this can take 2-3 months to credit

by transferring some Finnair Plus frequent flyer miles into Accor at a 7:1 ratio

by transferring some Qatar Airways Qmiles into Accor at a 4.5 : 1 ratio

by transferring some Club Eurostar points into Accor at a 1 : 3 ratio

by crediting a Europcar car rental to Accor

by crediting a Hertz car rental to Accor (USA rentals excluded)

by subscribing to The Economist

by buying a Priority Pass airport lounge card

by joining the free ClubOpinions market research panel (has a sign-up bonus)

by eating or drinking in a participating UK hotel (this is currently a trial) 

I won’t be doing a stay or any of the things above.  What I can do with the points I have before they expire?

In general, you need to earn 2,000 Le Club AccorHotels points to get any value from them. That will allow you to redeem for a €40 Accor voucher.

Transfers to airline partners or Club Eurostar generally require a minimum of 4,000 points. If you want to transfer to Avios, convert to Iberia Plus (where the rate is 1:1) rather than British Airways Executive Club (where the rate is 2:1). Iberia also has a lower minimum transfer level of 3,000 points.

It used to be possible to transfer ANY number of Accor points to airline miles. There have been few reports of this method working for a while.  It requires you to sign up for automatic transfer at a time when a special Avios promotion is running.

There are two options to convert points to charity but, again, a minimum of 2,000 points is required.

There are some car, leisure and rail redemption options but nothing suitable for a UK resident.

The bottom line is that, if you have more than 2,000 points, you should convert them into Accor vouchers or airline miles before they expire. The alternative is to ensure that you do manage to spend one night at an Accor property every 12 months.

If you want to track the expiry dates of all of your miles and points, I recommend signing up to AwardWallet for free. It keeps all of your points balances, including non-travel loyalty schemes, in one place and updates them automatically. If you pay for the premium version it also tracks your expiry dates and emails you when points are about to expire.

Accor Live Limitless update – December 2021:

Earn bonus Accor points: Accor is not currently running a global promotion

New to Accor Live Limitless?  Read our overview of Accor Live Limitless here and our article on points expiry rules here. Our analysis of what Accor Live Limitless points are worth is here.

Want to earn more hotel points?  Click here to see our complete list of promotions from Accor and the other major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.