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GOL Linhas Aéreas — better known as GOL Airlines — is a large low-cost carrier based in Brazil, serving dozens of destinations across South America. Its loyalty program, GOL Smiles, offers travelers the chance to earn and redeem miles for flights, upgrades, and more.
GOL miles expire according to one of the most complicated mileage expiration policies we have seen. Whether you’re a casual traveler or a frequent flyer with elite status, it’s important to understand when your GOL miles expire and how to prevent them from going to waste.
Here's a full breakdown of how GOL Smiles mileage expiration works, how to extend or reinstate miles, and when it might make sense to pay to keep your miles alive.
Page Contents
Do GOL Miles Expire?
Per the GOL program terms and conditions page, GOL miles generally expire as follows:
- 36 months: Smiles and Silver GOL Smiles members
- 48 months: Gold GOL Smiles members
- 120 months: Diamond GOL Smiles members
The next obvious question is what happens when your status changes, either up or down. Does it affect your mileage validity, and if so, in what way?
Moving between tiers does not affect the deadline for when your GOL miles expire. The validity of your miles is set according to your status tier at the time miles are earned. Per the GOL terms:
“Validity will be calculated from the date and time of crediting of Smiles Miles to the Smiles Account based on the category in force before said accumulation.”
Imagine a Diamond member earns miles today but fails to re-qualify for status this year, dropping down to the Gold level next. Miles earned today would be valid for 120 months, though miles earned as a Gold member next year would be valid for 48 months — likely expiring before the miles earned with the previous Diamond status.
Track your points and miles expiration for 630+ loyalty programs and get email alerts before your miles expire by signing up for a free AwardWallet account.
Different mileage expiration periods
Not all GOL miles expire based on the general rules. For instance, miles transferred or pooled are valid for 12 months, regardless of elite status tier. However, frequent transfer bonuses could make this worthwhile, even though the validity of your miles is shortened.
According to GOL, you can check individual mileage validities by logging into your GOL Smiles account and heading over to the My Data section.
Extending the Validity of Your GOL Smiles Miles
If you have miles that will expire in the next 60 days, you can request a validity extension. You can extend the validity of your miles for another 30, 60, or 90 days. This option is not free; you will be charged per mile.
The easiest way to extend the validity of your miles is through the Smiles app. After logging into your account, head to the “extend my miles section,” select your preference, pay, and you are done.
GOL regularly runs promotions to add additional time when you extend your mileage validity. In these promotions, you might be able to extend the expiration of your miles by 90, 180, and 360 days — instead of 30, 60, and 90 days. You'll pay between R$0.018 and R$0.022 per mile to extend validity, depending on the amount of time you add. That's 0.36¢—0.44¢ (approximately half a cent) per mile in U.S. Dollars.
Reinstating Expired GOL Smiles Miles
You can reinstate your expired GOL Smiles Miles for a fee. What's more, GOL runs regular promotions, providing a bonus when you reinstate your expired miles. Historically, GOL charged R$0.06 (around 1.2¢) apiece to reinstate expired miles. However, the exact fee is determined at the time of checkout.
Before you reinstate your miles, make sure you have a use for them. Reinstated miles are valid for just 12 months.
Use AwardWallet to Track Your GOL Smiles Miles Expiration
AwardWallet can help save you the hassle of calculating and keeping track of all the different mileage expiration deadlines of GOL Smiles Miles. To do so is relatively simple; all you need to do is add your GOL account to AwardWallet.
Once linked, you will receive a timely reminder telling you when you have miles about to expire so you can take action and not have them wasted.
Related: How to Track Your Rewards Using AwardWallet
Our Take
Keeping track of your GOL Smiles miles can be complicated due to the complex expiration policies. However, GOL does send you a monthly newsletter outlining which of your miles expire soon. This means you should always have a heads-up on your mileage balances.
The comments on this page are not provided, reviewed, or otherwise approved by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
Good morning, can anyone log on to Award Wallet with their Gol or Smiles account? I’ve tried with my CPF, with my Smiles number and neither way works.
Now, if I have different miles with different expiration dates, which miles are going to be used first when making a redemption? Those expiring first or those earned first ?
That’s an excellent question – and unfortunately not one that I can answer based on the information spelled out on the Gol Smiles website. But hopefully another commenter can share their experience with this!
Espectacular la explicación de los vencimientos. Yo soy socio smile de go l y no entendía cómo era. Ahora podré controlar los distintos tipos
I never knew about Gol’s expiration policy. Was very clarifying. This airline has very good promotions to travel and the past year they improve a lot in service and punctuality. Great to travel with them
Es muy dificil intentar seguir el vencimiento de las millas sin la ayuda de AwardWallet. Lo que es mas caro es a veces reactivar millas que aprovechar una promocion de compra de millas, pensando en que te envian un mail con el 70 % de descuento en la compra de millas
This expirations policies are really complex, it would be better to have miles in other currencies
GOL miles… this seems like a pretty rigorous program… how successful are folks at making good use of this.??
Good question! But, it’s a popular program with AwardWallet members. So, we wanted to share this resource for those that were wondering about point expiration.
Only if AA would come up with a 20-year expiration window HAHAHA!
This has to surely win some award for most complicated set of mileage expiry rules for a FF program?
I think it’s a unanimous decision that they win Most Complicated Expiration Policy
I flew with GOL once, and never knew about their miles expiration policy. Not surprised, considering how confusing and convoluted it appears to be, from this article’s content. If I ever travel to South America again, I’ll just try flying there with an American Airlines partner to collect/redeem miles with the AAdvantage loyalty program instead.
And awardwallet is our great partner to prevent Gol airline miles from expiring. Note that the rules are quite complicated and a tool like awardwallet is essential.
GOL members from Argentina can enroll in Club Smiles for plans starting at 750 Argentine pesos to credit 1,000 miles per month. This also allows access to exclusive offers and promotional vouchers to buy miles with significant discounts.
Realmente resulta muy difícil hacer un seguimiento de millas
No obstante el aviso de vencimiento de millas que todos hacen también es complejo e inapropiado planificar Viajes en consideración a ello.
No se entiende cuáles son las políticas que impulsan a las compañías a estos sistemas de caducidad de millas
Su negocio debería ser transportar personas, así las cosas pareciera terminan teniendo ganancias de las millas que se caducan. Esto más que perseguir un esquema de fidelidad del usuario termina en su fastidio cuando se ke caducan millas. Es para pensarlo por las compañías.
Gracias por la nota muy claro tengo cuenta en smiles y nunca me sabía lo fecha de vencimiento. Ahora tengo menos dudas .
In my experience, sometimes they might have promotional offers for credit card transfers (at least in the Brazilian market), and the bonus miles have ridiculously low expiration dates. In the past, I’ve received promotional Smiles miles that only had 30 days of expiration.
It’s quite hard to keep track of everything, and I’ve had my fair share of expired miles over the years.
That’s wild!
Convoluted programs like these should be avoided at all costs.