There is a recent auction on Ebay regarding the sale of 220,000 frequent flyer miles. We all know this is against program rules. So I call upon trusted flyertalkers such as PREMEX, OZSTAMPS, and the (in)famous JONNYC and others to crack this case.

Here are the clues:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=1940945975

The person's title on the statement appears to be start with Dr.

The person has 49 upgrades

Total mileage balance is 649,021

The person has been on Ebay for less than one month

He has a total of 13 feedback all which totals less than $10.00 TOTAL (seems like B.S. purchases to at least give himself some feedback.

He lists himself out of Miami Florida


As trusted flyertalkers and protectors of all good in this world I urge the following people to begin their campaign. This smells like a total scam. Begin your work trusted flyertalkers and sidekicks. I will reward your work with drink tickets and car rental discounts.

What a goose! Posting his account details save for name and number - AA will probably get to this one very quickly. Pity ozstamps has been grounded (pardon the pun) by Randy!

I find it very interesting that his YTD Q-points and Q-miles are identical.

Steve

wouldn't this person need new miles after he has sold them??

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum...ML/008932.html

So are members of Flyertalk now becoming the mileage police? Should this not be just between the seller and the airlines?

Yeah, I'm not quite clear on why anyone here cares. In past cases where it's been interesting, the person in question tried to advertise the auction in these forums.

Did this guy just get $3906.66 for 220,000 miles?

Yes.

I dunno how a person can sell the miles on Ebay but I first opened this post hoping to be merely enlightened or fascinated by the means. Instead I was taken back to find that someone in here wants US to bust THEM!>?!?!?!

Why should we care if someone else makes something work for them? Cheers to the bloke who can pull it off! Are you jealous? Does it ruin it for everybody else? (Ruin what? The airlines keep changing and ruining things on their own!)

Get a life if you are into stopping somebody else's good time. Is this a miles BUZZ or a buzz kill?
I hope the former. It has been for me but buzz-kills should go to a different forum.
IMHO.



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If speed is not your thing, distance may as well be. Enjoy and embrace it all!

Why should I care? It's because this person is not making something work for him, or pulling off a stunt. That presupposes that what he's doing is legitimate but clever. It isn't. It's just downright dishonest.

People who bend or break the rules cause the airlines hassle and cost in tracking them and enforcing the rules. I'd rather the airlines had that money to spend on improving customer service or FF benefits or reducing fares - or even, at worst, improving the rewards to their shareholders. Anything's better than the waste.

Airlines will also tend to react by making ever more restrictive rules, which themselves tend to hurt those who abide by the rules as much as they curb those who bend or break them. I'd rather that the rules permitted more, because everyone abided by them and what they were supposed to mean and permit.

If you think that this is an overreaction, think what the airlines might do if too many people sold their miles in breach of the rules. One change might be restricting reward tickets to account holder only, or to immediate family members. (Some FF schemes already do this, so it's not that far fetched.)

Where would that leave rule-observing FFs who want to take a couple of friends on a free shopping trip? Why should we all suffer in those ways? I say we should definitely bust those who we find are doing this.

These "miles for sales" threads are beginning to sound like a broken record. They always end up in the same discussion whether it is ethical/legal/allowed/whatever.
The first time it was interesting to see how FTers uncovered some of the facts behind the EBay offer, now it is all like a big deja vu.

Just my 2cts/1 airmile

2 cents? I'd be happy to get 1.5...

I don't know. Should the shoplifter and the store owner keep it betwen them? How about the guy who scratches someone's car in the parking lot or maybe the adult who takes a good swat at a child?

I have two thoughts:

1. If you aren't doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about being reported.

2. FT is also encouraging the violation of T & C of FF programs. In fact, methods to do this and remain anonymous are described by the moderator of the coupon connection.

[This message has been edited by drtravels (edited 11-26-2002).]

I don't think anyone on FT is being asked to actually bust the perpetrator here. At least, I didn't interpret the initial post quite *that* literally.

As for these auctions, I absolutely do care, just like I'd care if people were shoplifting from the little grocery store at the end of my street. Obviously this is a drop in the bucket with a huge airline like AA right now, but eventually this could impact all of us.

Eventually, some airline will get tired of people scamming their program, so they will take away the perk that allows us to give our awards to friends/family that aren't traveling with us. They probably won't ever form a department full of eBay Police, but they certainly WILL change the rules of their program on a whim. They've done it before...

Having said that, I hope they nail the moron in this auction who posted too much of his personal information.

sllevin: The Q-miles = Q-points means that he flies on Y/B fares. He probably flies paid segments exclusively for business and redeems awards for leisure travel. His company won't pay for him to fly F, but his Exp status takes care of that for him in most cases, I'd guess.

And yeah, these threads get pretty redundant, but we all come back and post again, don't we?