MilesBuzz! - If I buy a ticket, why do I have to be on the flight to get the miles?

Please excuse my ignorance for asking this. But say if I need 2k miles. So I buy a ticket on a 3k mile flight. Why do I actually have to be on the flight to receive miles. Wouldn't the airline make more money if they kept my fare and gave my seat to someone else. As long as I agreed not to re-book or ask for a refund.

You need to be on the flight to get your miles. Pick a city with an easy same day turn around and enjoy a good book.

Please excuse my ignorance for asking this. But say if I need 2k miles. So I buy a ticket on a 3k mile flight. Why do I actually have to be on the flight to receive miles. Wouldn't the airline make more money if they kept my far and gave my seat to someone else. As long as I agreed not to re-book or ask for a refund.

Easy answer, they give the miles, they make the rules.

For the second part of your "question", how would you LEGALLY and contractually agree to not re-book or ask for a refund?

Also, what says that they have another person to put in "your" seat? Not all flights go out full.

At first, I thought it was a silly question. Rules are rules, blah blah. But OP has a point in that the airline would save fuel for not having to fly the 100-200# of person around should they give the miles without requiring the flight.

I agree with you deant. But with the current economic conditions what does and airline have to lose by selling a ticket to a customer just so they can gain miles or why not just sell qualifying miles. They would certainly make money on it.

I agree with you deant. But with the current economic conditions what does and airline have to lose by selling a ticket to a customer just so they can gain miles or why not just sell qualifying miles. They would certainly make money on it.
I would imagine this has (in part) to do with people trying to "buy" status. It is one thing book 25,000 miles in airfare, and something totally different to fly it.

I think this is the same reason why most airlines (outside of some promos) don't sell status eligable miles.

This has always bothered me, but here is the practical truth. If you buy status by booking low cost flights, you would end up reaching a level where the status gives you double FF miles (usually at 50,000 miles). This means that the airline would be giving away lots of miles for relatively low cost invested. The only reason people would book a flight to get miles and not fly, is because they realize that they will be financially ahead in the long run once they have status. If a passenger is financially ahead, then the airline is financially behind.

I would imagine this has (in part) to do with people trying to "buy" status. It is one thing book 25,000 miles in airfare, and something totally different to fly it...Indeed. If I want to buy statusw, it's a lot easier for me to find a cheap air fare with no constraints on location or travel dates than it is to find one that leaves from a place I can get to and at a time I can fly. If there's an incredible bargain on, say, tickets from LAX to AUS, it's pretty much limited to people in southern California and south-central Texas (plus a few weirdos like FTers, of course). Without a requirement to fly, I'd buy a dozen tickets and pocket the miles without leaving Massachusetts.

A few years back Thai had very low fares for domestic flights. They earned minimum-mileage credit on Star Alliance partners. Several FTers earned top-tier UA status "on the cheap" by going to Thailand and making eight or ten short flights per day once they got there. (Do an FT search for "Baht run" if you're curious.) If it hadn't been necessary to actually be on those flights it wouldn't have been "several," it would have been "several hundred." (The tickets had to be purchased in Thailand, IIRC, but it wouldn't be too hard to find a cooperative travel agent there.)

Why do I actually have to be on the flight to receive miles.
Because these are Frequent Flyer programmes, and not Frequent Buyer programmes.

But say if I need 2k miles. So I buy a ticket on a 3k mile flight.Many airlines would be happy to sell you the miles you require, e.g. https://www.AA.com/i18n/AAdvantage/programDetails/purchasingMiles/purchasingMiles.jsp

Because these are Frequent Flyer programmes, and not Frequent Buyer programmes.

Many airlines would be happy to sell you the miles you require, e.g. https://www.AA.com/i18n/AAdvantage/programDetails/purchasingMiles/purchasingMiles.jsp
Kinda sorta. They'll sell you all the miles permitted by their program. AA is 40k buy/gift and 25k (usually 15k) share. All of the programs have limits on their buy/gift and share programs. If AA permitted more then 25k this year, I'd be glad to give them the money (know of many orphaned accounts, worth it at $.01/rdm.

This has always bothered me, but here is the practical truth. If you buy status by booking low cost flights, you would end up reaching a level where the status gives you double FF miles (usually at 50,000 miles). This means that the airline would be giving away lots of miles for relatively low cost invested. The only reason people would book a flight to get miles and not fly, is because they realize that they will be financially ahead in the long run once they have status. If a passenger is financially ahead, then the airline is financially behind.

Not exactly.

They give out miles which cost nothing up front.
Then they challenge you to use them.
If you get so lucky, it is on a space controlled basis, where they're pretty sure that you're receiving an otherwise empty seat.
The lucky passenger gets something that they would have to pay for, but the airline gives up something they'd get nothing for.

Cash now in exchange for a wasted asset later...?

This has always bothered me, but here is the practical truth. If you buy status by booking low cost flights, you would end up reaching a level where the status gives you double FF miles (usually at 50,000 miles). This means that the airline would be giving away lots of miles for relatively low cost invested. The only reason people would book a flight to get miles and not fly, is because they realize that they will be financially ahead in the long run once they have status. If a passenger is financially ahead, then the airline is financially behind.
I wonder what % of miles are given with 2x bonuses? I would bet a lot (even though FF make up a small % of the flying public, they are the most "Frequent" of flyers...). Also, people that don't fly much, either don't have FF accounts, or earn miles so slow, that actual redemption is near zero.

So to the airline, I would bet, they figure that most redeemed miles would be awarded at 2x, and they setup their cost/fee/redemptions/etc structures around that.

BTW: I have zero insider knowledge of how airlines work, this is strictly guess work on my part.

If airlines allowed this, once a good fare popped up, and got posted here, if we were able to buy it and mark it as a 'no-fly' then they'd sell that same seat probably 1,000 with all of us jumping on the deal. I think they'd know that the only time people are doing the 'no-fly' is to game the miles - why should they allow that? This means you have to be that much more invested to work the system - you have to spend your time to fly.

Sometimes they don't even give you the miles when you fly. For a while I was buying four seats across the middle in economy on NW for RT Transpac. It was a lot more comfortable and a lot cheaper than a single business class seat. With PLT on NW I was expecting to get around 150k miles for the RT, but it turns out they won't give you miles for the extra seats.

it turns out they won't give you miles for the extra seats.Because that is really only one step removed from "buying without flying" ... you are flying once, but earn miles as if you'd flown 4 times. In order to keep things based on flying, miles are earned per passenger, not per seat. (That is, status miles are earned per passenger; it is possible to earn additional RDM for extra seats, on certain airlines, but they will not affect your elite qualification.)

Sometimes they don't even give you the miles when you fly. For a while I was buying four seats across the middle in economy on NW for RT Transpac. It was a lot more comfortable and a lot cheaper than a single business class seat. With PLT on NW I was expecting to get around 150k miles for the RT, but it turns out they won't give you miles for the extra seats.Thats a great idea!

The OP makes a fair point.

There is a good reason why HOTEL chains won't give points if you don't turn up. The room rate is only a % of the total spend from a hotel guest - the hotel needs the money from breakfast, dinner, mini-bar, parking, pay TV etc as well to survive. If you don't turn up, it saves a couple of $ on room cleaning but loses a lot of $ of discretionary spend. Hotel chains are also very keen on giving generous bonuses based on stays, not spend, which would lead to the cheapest properties in a chain being fully booked by FT'ers every night with no intention of turning up!

Airlines are moving slowly in that direction - the extra bag charge etc won't be paid if you don't fly. These charges are still tiny as a % of the fare, though, and the airline ALSO pockets the 'taxes and charges' on your ticket which are not handed over to the airport authorities, US customs etc if you don't fly. A no-show is SUBSTANTIALLY more profitably than a 'show' even if the seat is not re-sold because of the fuel saving and the fact that the taxes money is retained. So why not give the miles?!

Look at it another way ... some airlines are happy to sell you status for another year if you fail to requalify. This is not fundamentally different from letting you buy a seat but not take the flight.

A no-show is SUBSTANTIALLY more profitably than a 'show' even if the seat is not re-sold because of the fuel saving and the fact that the taxes money is retained. So why not give the miles?!Because mileage programs are not entirely about one-time profit. It's also not necessarily more profitable - the miles are a liability on the books, not to mention the future bonus miles that would be earned as a result of the "early" status granted this way. By increasing the burden to earn elite status, the airline decreases the potential benefits it has to pay out in the future. It also prevents the artificial inflation of the ranks of elite-status flyers, which thereby reduces dilution of elite benefits and makes the "earned" elites much happier.

some airlines are happy to sell you status for another year if you fail to requalify. This is not fundamentally different from letting you buy a seat but not take the flight.Sure it is, because:

(a) Buy-up status is offered generally on a case-by-case basis with strict limits on the amount that can be bought (e.g. the airline may offer a buy-up to the next status level, but will not allow a 2-level buy-up). In the proposed scenario, anyone could buy up to the max status level even from zero, with no restrictions.

(b) Buy-ups are generally offered at hugely inflated prices, typically something like 10 cents per status-qualifying mile (and usually in 1000-mile chunks) plus possible "administration fee." This makes it relatively cost-prohibitive and really a pure profit center for the airline. On the other hand, a good mileage run (especially with DEQM) can yield ~1-2 cpm; in the proposed scenario, one could buy any good mileage-run routing, regardless of how inconvenient it would be to fly (since one wouldn't be flying it), and "buy up" to elite status relatively cheaply.

As such, I think status buy-ups are fundamentally different from the proposed "miles without flying," both from a profit perspective and from a benefits-dilution perspective.