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Account audit / blocked / fraud: award / miles / SWU / sale, barter, etc.

Old Jul 29, 2014, 10:15 am
FlyerTalk Forums Expert How-Tos and Guides
Last edit by: Prospero
This thread is dedicated to issues around American Airlines Corporate Security, AAdvantage Fraud division (AKA "Revenue Protection Unit"), and its enforcement of the AAdvantage Terms and Conditions - particularly to selling, buying and bartering awards, miles, upgrades and other instruments - and related issues.

It is okay at this time to gift awards, upgrades, etc. as long as there is absolutely no quid pro quo (no buying or selling or offer to do so, no barter or trade "you give me one now I'll give it back" or anything smacking of prohibited activity. AA is probably the strictest of the US airlines about this. They have a very active and expert AAdvantage Fraud division of the AA Corporate Fraud department, and they can both be aggressive and, some might say merciless - clawing back one's miles and instruments, even closing one's account and terminating status and ability to participate in the AAdvantage program n the future.

There are other ways to commit fraud in AAs eyes, such as fictitious or fraudulent bookings to try to block seats to increase ones chances if upgrades, generating tickets to access airside facilities (e.g. lounges) when there is no intent to fly, etc.

To read an example of how the US Department of Transportation has rules on punitive actions by AA, read Joel Hayes vs. American Airlines here (PDF).

Please read on for information and the consensus of knowledgeable members.

E.g. AAdvantage Terms and Conditions excerpt: "At no time may AAdvantage mileage credit or award tickets be purchased, sold, advertised for sale or bartered (including but not limited to transferring, gifting, or promising mileage credit or award tickets in exchange for support of a certain business, product or charity and/or participation in an auction, sweepstakes, raffle or contest). Any such mileage or tickets are void if transferred for cash or other consideration. Violators (including any passenger who uses a purchased or bartered award ticket) may be liable for damages and litigation costs, including American Airlines attorneys fees incurred in enforcing this rule." (This extends to other AA instruments such as Systemwide Upgrades, etc., selling of extra AirPass seats or baggage allowance, etc.)
Also see AAdvantage Program Terms and Conditions and

American Airlines Conditions of Carriage.

Originally Posted by SS255
<snip>"While you may consider the AAdvantage Miles in your account to be *your* property, they are actually the property of AA, and AA permits you to redeem them within the program rules set by AA. If AA detects any impropriety (real or perceived) in the use of AAdvantage miles, they reserve the right to confiscate the miles and/or close/delete the account."...
The typical email from AA Corporate Security can not be addressed by calling AAdvantage Customer Service or other methods - you must reply to the email address given. It likely will look like this:

My name is Fname Lname, and I am an analyst with American Airlines. One of my responsibilities is investigating possible instances of fraud, misrepresentation, and violations of the General AAdvantage Program Conditions. Today, Im writing you about your AAdvantage account # XXXXXXXX

We have reason to believe that the transactions listed below violate one or more of the AAdvantage program conditions. This includes, but is not limited to, prohibition of purchase, sale, or barter of mileage credit and or award tickets. As a result, American Airlines has suspended your AAdvantage membership privileges and use of AA.com in conjunction with your account and may terminate your account as a result of our findings. We are in the process of completing the investigation into this matter, and I would like to hear the events as they occurred from your perspective. Please respond to this message by <date> with complete and accurate information regarding the activities listed below:

<specific activity /activities in question>

Required Information:
  • Passenger name
    • Origin and destination cities on the travel itinerary
      • Purchaser name (individual, company and/or website), including:
        • Copy of any advertisements to which you responded offering to purchase/broker the use of your AAdvantage miles
          • Purchaser contact information, such as:
            • Mailing address
              • Email address
                • Telephone number
                  • Website profile name
                    • Your statement fully disclosing the details surrounding the sale/barter transaction referenced above
                      • Copy of all communication between yourself and the purchaser
                        • Documentation that you received payment


To protect and retain the integrity of the AAdvantage program, it is vital that firm action be taken as a result of any violation of the AAdvantage Program Conditions, whether intentional or not. Failure to respond completely and accurately by <insert date>, will result in the termination of your AAdvantage membership and all its benefits, including all remaining AAdvantage miles in your account and any award tickets issued from it. Please, understand that our overall motivation is to preserve the benefits of the AAdvantage program, rather than to take punitive action against individuals. To that end, its not unusual for us to release the AAdvantage account suspension once we receive all the detail we request and reconcile it with the results of our investigation. We hope to hear from you soon.

Regards,

Fname Lname, etc.
Excellent summaries of information (based on the sum of experiences we have seen in this thread over time) of how to respond:

Blogger Gary Leff: "If you made that mistake and got caught, American usually will go light on first-time offenders provided that they come clean and are forthcoming about whom a systemwide was sold to or purchased from and what the terms were. They are most interested in serial brokers and are willing to plea bargain with minor offenders to get the Evip-lords. There may be a consequence but it should fall short of account shutdown and forfeiture of miles." Link
Originally Posted by sbrower
I am going to try and provide a summary of the advice. For the record, this is 90% from Jon (JonNYC) and a little bit from other comments and circumstances, I am just trying to provide an easy summary, without all the explanations and reasons. I am happy to have others update/correct.

1. Respond to the questions in the email which you received. Don't try to call or email that person, or anyone else, at AA or DOT or whatever. Just answer the email.

2. Answer every question, in detail, with the facts. Don't use sarcasm or "you should know" or anything else that sounds like to you are avoiding the exact question being asked.

3. Assume that they know more about the true facts than you do. It might not always be true, but in most cases they have way more information than you might assume. So go back to #2, above.

4. If you did ANYTHING that was wrong (not under your interpretation of what you think the rules should be, but based on what the rules actually say) then, if you want to continue to participate in the AAdvantage program, tell them about your error and tell them that you are prepared to pay a correct penalty for your mistake (miles/status/etc) and then go back to #2, above.
From JonNYC, our resident expert on this:

Originally Posted by JonNYC
Perfect and 100%.
<snip>

The analysts that do this for a living have the same reactions that any humans do to being lied to and/or condescended to. Therefore, as well as being 100% truthful, go out of your way NOT to be:

-condescending
-brusque
-sharp, terse and/or sounding like you're being inconvenienced
-insulting
-just generally slippery, aloof, evasive and unforthcoming. As mentioned; they know more than you think they do. Always.

DO be apologetic, contrite and extremely cooperative.

Finally, any version of "...in which case, I'll be emailing [insert name or department here] to tell them how I, a [insert years flying AA, status, MMer, $$ spent, etc] customer is being treated" and/or mention of your lawyer, DOT, Chris Elliot (), this forum, any blogger, etc. DO NOT DO THIS.
Older posts have been archived to the
archived thread.

A number of posts regarding AA's confiscation of 60,000 miles from "Mr. Hayes" for allegedly making "fictitious" bookings in search of whether his upgrade would be likely to progress or not, AA IT issues that might have led to this (or not), AA's replies and the USDOT complaint have been moved to a new thread: Hayes, USDOT and AA: "fictitious bookings" and checking upgrades.

NOTE: Posts about members experiencing account security breaches, fraud, theft of awards and instruments have moved to Account fraud / breach: my account compromised, awards stolen, etc..

Print Wikipost

Account audit / blocked / fraud: award / miles / SWU / sale, barter, etc.

Old Feb 21, 2017, 1:21 pm
  #76  
 
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: New York
Programs: AA EXP 1.0mm, not sure where I am with hotels these days
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Originally Posted by Snowycali
Please answer the following:
1. Who booked the reservation(s)? You know it was me.
2. How (i.e. on AA.COM and/or telephoned AA) was the reservation(s) booked? You know i booked online.
3. How do you know xxxxx? Please indicate their complete name and contact information:
Complete Name: I already told you.
Address: Its in Chicago, IL. I have not been to her home there, ill ask her if it matters.
Email address: You already know this. Im CCing her in my responses to your emails.
Telephone (home): I dont know.
Telephone (cell): You already know this. xxxxxxxx.
Telephone (business): I dont know.
Date of Birth: You already know this. xxxxxxxth.
4. How long have you known xxxxx? I already told you.
5. What type (i.e. American Express, Mastercard, Visa, Discover, etc.) of credit card(s) was used to pay the fees associated with the ticket processing? What are the first four digits and last four digits of the credit card(s) used? This does not exist.
6. Who is the subscriber to the credit card(s) used for the payment and billing address? This does not exist.
7. What email address(es) was provided to AA so that AA could communicate the processing of the ticket(s)? You already know this. Its this email.
8. Who is the subscriber of the email address(es) provided to AA? You already know this. Its this email.
9. How did you provide payment for the ticket(s) you had issued for yourself? Gift card most likely. You already know this.
You could create a wiki on what NOT to do when confronted with this type of account issue. There are plenty of posts providing advice deep in this thread as to how to best deal with AA.

You have to wonder if the friend/girlfriend was being watched because of past issues with SWUs.
george 3 is offline  
Old Feb 21, 2017, 2:30 pm
  #77  
 
Join Date: Mar 2015
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The Wife of one of the Radiologist in the hospital, travels extensively for work and she always has left over SWUs as she is generally in paid business when she travels, thus not needing them for herself and finds that they make nice gifts.

I have twice been the recipient of her SWUs and the only thing ever asked was at the Ft. Lauderdale Ticket Office on Oakland Park, Blvd. The agent asked how I came about the SWU as I was not an ExecPlat and I explained that it was a gift from a colleagues wife and nothing more was said.

In fact she said, be sure to thank her as they are valuable and truly make nice gifts.

So, I think people can safely use them if they are gifts.
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Old Feb 21, 2017, 2:48 pm
  #78  
 
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Originally Posted by kmersh

So, I think people can safely use them if they are gifts.
I agree but would add: ...and should AA ask about how you obtained your gifted SWU be respectful and truthfully answer any questions rather than sending snarking emails back that basically ignore their questions
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Old Feb 21, 2017, 2:53 pm
  #79  
 
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: NYC
Posts: 9,087
Originally Posted by Snowycali
Please answer the following:
9. How did you provide payment for the ticket(s) you had issued for yourself? Gift card most likely. You already know this.
Did you not know how you paid for the ticket? This sounds evasive and would be a red flag for me.
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Old Feb 21, 2017, 3:16 pm
  #80  
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Originally Posted by kmersh
So, I think people can safely use them if they are gifts.
There's not the slightest sliver of doubt about this

Originally Posted by erik123
Did you not know how you paid for the ticket? This sounds evasive and would be a red flag for me.
I missed that one-- the whole set of answers and non-answers is a veritable how-to (kiss your AAdv account goodbye.)
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Old Feb 21, 2017, 4:41 pm
  #81  
 
Join Date: Mar 2016
Posts: 22
Originally Posted by kmersh
The Wife of one of the Radiologist in the hospital, travels extensively for work and she always has left over SWUs as she is generally in paid business when she travels, thus not needing them for herself and finds that they make nice gifts.

I have twice been the recipient of her SWUs and the only thing ever asked was at the Ft. Lauderdale Ticket Office on Oakland Park, Blvd. The agent asked how I came about the SWU as I was not an ExecPlat and I explained that it was a gift from a colleagues wife and nothing more was said.

In fact she said, be sure to thank her as they are valuable and truly make nice gifts.

So, I think people can safely use them if they are gifts.
Be sure to document how you know the person, they could accuse you of purchasing them at any time.
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Old Feb 21, 2017, 4:46 pm
  #82  
 
Join Date: Mar 2016
Posts: 22
Originally Posted by JonNYC
There's not the slightest sliver of doubt about this



I missed that one-- the whole set of answers and non-answers is a veritable how-to (kiss your AAdv account goodbye.)
..... on this forum when i have just been asking what possible recourse i can take now as ive been accused. Im not looking for a useless sycophant, but its not doing any good for people to jump on top of me with the obvious dilemma im in.

There seems to be no way to satisfy the agent other than to lie and say i purchased them and make up fake invoices.

@JonNYC i am not ignoring your PM. The site is limiting my PMs i can send cause of my post count.

I meant to say ive been accused of purchasing a SWU. Apparently she had been selling them, and this is what they are assuming I did. I was asking how to proceed with that as they have decided i purchased them.

Last edited by JDiver; Feb 21, 2017 at 6:58 pm Reason: Redacted unnecessary bit
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Old Feb 21, 2017, 4:51 pm
  #83  
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Originally Posted by Snowycali
..... on this forum when i have just been asking what possible recourse i can take now as ive been accused. Im not looking for a useless sycophant, but its not doing any good for people to jump on top of me with the obvious dilemma im in.

There seems to be no way to satisfy the agent other than to lie and say i purchased them and make up fake invoices.

@JonNYC i am not ignoring your PM. The site is limiting my PMs i can send cause of my post count.

I meant to say ive been accused of purchasing a SWU. Apparently she had been selling them, and this is what they are assuming I did. I was asking how to proceed with that as they have decided i purchased them.
Everyone is pointing out its your actions that caused them to believe this is what happened. We all feel sorry for you if indeed nothing was traded (and this includes non-cash favors/barter/etc). However youve already given the impression (wrongly or rightly) that you have something to hide. At this point there's really nothing that can be done to explain. You had your chance and in a nutshell blew it.

Last edited by Microwave; Feb 22, 2017 at 12:09 am Reason: Edited quote of edited post
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Old Feb 21, 2017, 7:04 pm
  #84  
 
Join Date: Jul 2010
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Originally Posted by Snowycali
I meant to say ive been accused of purchasing a SWU. Apparently she had been selling them, and this is what they are assuming I did. I was asking how to proceed with that as they have decided i purchased them.
If you'd asked this forum when AA corp security first reached out to you, folks here likely could have helped. As several folks have pointed out, there isn't much you can do at this point besides the aforementioned "hail Mary." Not sure what else you want to know.
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Old Feb 21, 2017, 7:45 pm
  #85  
 
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Originally Posted by Snowycali
..... on this forum when i have just been asking what possible recourse i can take now as ive been accused. Im not looking for a useless sycophant, but its not doing any good for people to jump on top of me with the obvious dilemma im in.

There seems to be no way to satisfy the agent other than to lie and say i purchased them and make up fake invoices.

....
IMHO - Your tone is still very defiant and defensive, in a thread where people are trying to help. If you did get a chance to speak/write with AA security and said, "Your agent left me no choice but to "lie and say i purchased them and make up fake invoices" your not going to get anywhere.

Maybe it is just the way you write. You might want to consider having someone else write the letter (if you plan to do it.)

Aside from possibly taking my previous advice (and the above), if JonNYC is willing to help, he is your best chance to get what you want.
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Old Feb 21, 2017, 7:46 pm
  #86  
 
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Sorry if this has been answered, but what exactly did you lose in having the account deleted? Did you have any status or a large chunk of miles?
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Old Feb 21, 2017, 8:42 pm
  #87  
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Originally Posted by Global321
Maybe it is just the way you write. You might want to consider having someone else write the letter (if you plan to do it.)
I second this advice. On Internet forums we all encounter people who for whatever reason can't seem to write in a non-contentious tone. If you think you might be one of those people then by all means enlist a ghost writer or at least a reviewer. Give yourself the best chance possible, backed up by as much compelling evidence as you can assemble.
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Old Feb 21, 2017, 8:47 pm
  #88  
 
Join Date: Jul 2011
Posts: 72
Originally Posted by FlyingFrZ
Sorry if this has been answered, but what exactly did you lose in having the account deleted? Did you have any status or a large chunk of miles?
I have the same question. We all know AA is very strict with trading miles and SWU for cash.

Last edited by plainheart; Feb 21, 2017 at 9:07 pm
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Old Feb 21, 2017, 8:51 pm
  #89  
 
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Originally Posted by plainheart
I have the same question. We all know AA is very strict with trading miles and SWU for cash. Why not just move on and create a new account?
To be clear, when you've been banned from AAdvantage (in the agent's words, "[y]ou are no longer eligible to participate in the AAdvantage program"), you can't just create a new AAdvantage account. You're persona non grata.
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Old Feb 21, 2017, 8:54 pm
  #90  
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Originally Posted by Global321
IMHO - Your tone is still very defiant and defensive, in a thread where people are trying to help. If you did get a chance to speak/write with AA security and said, "Your agent left me no choice but to "lie and say i purchased them and make up fake invoices" your not going to get anywhere.
Snowycali, you should also be aware that AA Security may well read this forum. AA certainly knows about FT. Your verbatim reproduction of your unusual correspondence with AA certainly makes it easy for AA to identify you. Add to it a public statement that you might just try to solve the problem by lying, and I suggest that it might be time to consider taking your business elsewhere. You're not going to get anywhere with AA, IMO. At least you can get a fresh start with another carrier.
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