A few days back I wrote about my problem transferring points from Starwood to Aeroplan.

• As a Starwood Platinum I can transfer as little as 1 point from Starwood to many airline frequent flyer programs. That’s a fantastic benefit for keeping points from expiring.

• I moved 1 point from Starwood to Aeroplan. The points didn’t post to my account.

• When I asked Starwood about this, I was told that — despite what it says on the website — the minimum transfer to Aeroplan is 500 miles. Since the amount was less than that, it didn’t post. No one told me about it, and the points didn’t end up back in my account.

I was watching this because I have a large Aeroplan balance that I don’t want to let expire. You need activity in your account every 12 months, not 18 months like with American and United.

After my post, a Starwood executive reached out to me. They let me know that:

• Their customer service agent gave me bad information. There is not a 500 point minimum for transfers to Aeroplan.

• They show the transfer as going through successfully.

• They confirmed with Aeroplan that the transfer went through.

And yet when I log into my Aeroplan my 2016 earnings are zero and my only account activity is a redemption early in the year.

I’ve reached out to Aeroplan to try to sort through what’s happening, if they tell Starwood that the point was received but it doesn’t show up in my account.

It’s quite possible I was unfair to Starwood here (although it doesn’t help that I was basing my understanding on what Starwood had told me).

However the lesson is that you always need to track your points. I used to be better about this than I am today, keeping a spreadsheet of every points-earning transaction and tracking each until they post to an account. Now my miles post properly most of the time and I’ve become far more lax.

It matters most of course when the points amounts are large or the transfer is necessary to book an award or keep an account balance from expiring.