Finally someone has come to their senses.

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer wants the Feds to step in to review complaints from consumers about frequent flyer programs. The biggest complaint—and there is no shortage—are from people who get ready to plan a trip only to discover, with no thanks to the preferred airline, that their miles have expired.

If Schumer were a marketer he would understand that expired miles is only one problem. The fact is that members of airline programs go out of their way to prove their loyalty. And when the time comes to redeem their hard-earned miles its nothing but aggravation. The airlines know it and have added on other ways for members to redeem points to satisfy members. But the bottom line is, air travel is expensive and people join air mile programs to go airborne and the airlines in turn make it an unpleasant experience: expire points, expect people to travel at the airlines convenience at ridiculously early or late hours and make numerous connections, among other aggravations. People get angry, say mean things about the airline and start to wonder why they are spending all their time and money to earn loyalty from a company that doesn’t seem to care.

Many average Americans put a lot of effort into earning miles which all bring enormous benefits to the airline. They always fly the same airline, even if it does cost a bit more or means traveling out of an inconvenient airport. Members meticulously use airline branded credit cards to purchase everything from furniture to candy bars to earn every mile possible. They join dining clubs and only eat in restaurants where they can earn miles. They rent cars from airline partners. And the list goes on. The airlines are great at providing all kinds of ways for members to gather miles, but not so good at doling them out when the time comes.

Here’s an example. Last August, I took a vacation to Alaska and started in early spring to use my American Airline miles to get a flight. I tried the Web site then began calling for more help. The calls continued for weeks before I finally settled on a circuitous route that the rep said I could try to improve upon. We continued calling right up until the day before we left to get better flights. In the end, we traveled at 8:30 pm from New York’s JFK to Los Angeles, where we had to stay overnight. We left the next night around 8:30 pm to arrive in Anchorage at 1 am. It gets better. On the return flight, we were given an afternoon flight from Anchorage to Seattle where we had to stay overnight. We then took a morning flight from Seattle to Dallas, then an afternoon flight from Dallas to New York.

People often have a difficult time using air miles at busy times of the year, like summertime and holidays, but, guess what, that’s when many people want to travel.

The many frustrated frequent-flyer members don’t think they’re getting a very good return on their investments.

Consumers must have made an awful uproar for a politician to take notice. But the fact is that loyalty members have been steaming over these problems for year and its now time for change.

Schumer wants to establish industry standards and has asked the Department of Transportation to handle the inquiry. He said over the weekend that 10 trillion unused frequent-flyer miles worth $165 billion are in circulation, but that 20% of the miles may never be used.

In a news report, the Air Transport Association, the trade group for airlines, said the group doesn’t even track complaints about the miles programs and that each carrier tracks its own.

The airlines have known for a long time that loyalty members aren’t happy when redeeming miles. If it takes a politician to force change, this plane may be just too far down the runway to turn back.