diff --git a/docs/examples/affinity/cookie/README.md b/docs/examples/affinity/cookie/README.md
index ce0229980..fbe27b21f 100644
--- a/docs/examples/affinity/cookie/README.md
+++ b/docs/examples/affinity/cookie/README.md
@@ -11,6 +11,8 @@ Session stickiness is achieved through 3 annotations on the Ingress, as shown in
 |nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/affinity|Sets the affinity type|string (in NGINX only ``cookie`` is possible|
 |nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/session-cookie-name|Name of the cookie that will be used|string (default to INGRESSCOOKIE)|
 |nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/session-cookie-hash|Type of hash that will be used in cookie value|sha1/md5/index|
+|nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/session-cookie-expires|The value is a date as UNIX timestamp that the cookie will expire on, it corresponds to cookie Expires directive|number of seconds|
+|nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/session-cookie-max-age|Number of seconds until the cookie expires that will correspond to cookie `Max-Age` directive|number of seconds|
 
 You can create the ingress to test this
 
@@ -37,6 +39,8 @@ Annotations:
   affinity:	cookie
   session-cookie-hash:		sha1
   session-cookie-name:		INGRESSCOOKIE
+  session-cookie-expires: 172800
+  session-cookie-max-age: 172800
 Events:
   FirstSeen	LastSeen	Count	From				SubObjectPath	Type		Reason	Message
   ---------	--------	-----	----				-------------	--------	------	-------
@@ -50,13 +54,13 @@ Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2017 14:11:12 GMT
 Content-Type: text/html
 Content-Length: 612
 Connection: keep-alive
-Set-Cookie: INGRESSCOOKIE=a9907b79b248140b56bb13723f72b67697baac3d; Path=/; HttpOnly
+Set-Cookie: INGRESSCOOKIE=a9907b79b248140b56bb13723f72b67697baac3d; Expires=Sun, 12-Feb-17 14:11:12 GMT; Max-Age=172800; Path=/; HttpOnly
 Last-Modified: Tue, 24 Jan 2017 14:02:19 GMT
 ETag: "58875e6b-264"
 Accept-Ranges: bytes
 ```
 In the example above, you can see a line containing the 'Set-Cookie: INGRESSCOOKIE' setting the right defined stickiness cookie.
-This cookie is created by NGINX containing the hash of the used upstream in that request. 
+This cookie is created by NGINX, it contains the hash of the used upstream in that request and has an expires. 
 If the user changes this cookie, NGINX creates a new one and redirect the user to another upstream.
 
 If the backend pool grows up NGINX will keep sending the requests through the same server of the first request, even if it's overloaded.
diff --git a/docs/examples/affinity/cookie/ingress.yaml b/docs/examples/affinity/cookie/ingress.yaml
index b44752804..fda193e46 100644
--- a/docs/examples/affinity/cookie/ingress.yaml
+++ b/docs/examples/affinity/cookie/ingress.yaml
@@ -6,6 +6,8 @@ metadata:
     nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/affinity: "cookie"
     nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/session-cookie-name: "route"
     nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/session-cookie-hash: "sha1"
+    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/session-cookie-expires: "172800"
+    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/session-cookie-max-age: "172800"
 
 spec:
   rules:
diff --git a/rootfs/etc/nginx/lua/balancer/sticky.lua b/rootfs/etc/nginx/lua/balancer/sticky.lua
index 3e542fe95..f60d1810e 100644
--- a/rootfs/etc/nginx/lua/balancer/sticky.lua
+++ b/rootfs/etc/nginx/lua/balancer/sticky.lua
@@ -57,7 +57,7 @@ local function set_cookie(self, value)
   }
 
   if self.cookie_expires and self.cookie_expires ~= "" then
-      cookie_data.expires = ngx.cookie_time(tonumber(self.cookie_expires))
+      cookie_data.expires = ngx.cookie_time(ngx.time() + tonumber(self.cookie_expires))
   end
 
   if self.cookie_max_age and self.cookie_max_age ~= "" then
diff --git a/test/e2e/annotations/affinity.go b/test/e2e/annotations/affinity.go
index 2842d5549..37ee03146 100644
--- a/test/e2e/annotations/affinity.go
+++ b/test/e2e/annotations/affinity.go
@@ -219,7 +219,7 @@ var _ = framework.IngressNginxDescribe("Annotations - Affinity/Sticky Sessions",
 		Expect(resp.StatusCode).Should(Equal(http.StatusOK))
 		local, _ := time.LoadLocation("GMT")
 		duration, _ := time.ParseDuration("48h")
-		expected := time.Date(1970, time.January, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, local).Add(duration).Format("Mon, 02-Jan-06 15:04:05 MST")
+		expected := time.Now().In(local).Add(duration).Format("Mon, 02-Jan-06 15:04")
 		Expect(resp.Header.Get("Set-Cookie")).Should(ContainSubstring(fmt.Sprintf("Expires=%s", expected)))
 		Expect(resp.Header.Get("Set-Cookie")).Should(ContainSubstring("Max-Age=259200"))
 	})