MilesBuzz! - Zero refund on a cheap ticket, fine with me, but how about letting me have the miles?

I'm okay with airlines giving zero refund on a cheap ticket.

Scenario: I can't make the flight, can't standby on the same day, and the ticket becomes worthless. Fine with me, since I'm the one who fails to show up for the flight. However, why can't the airlines at least just give me the frequent flyer miles? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

(or are they already doing this?)

No such luck. However, it would be nice if at least you got your taxes back!

Their reason for not giving you the miles is that, if they did, people with a little money to burn could buy status by buying cheap tix to anywhere, any time there's a good special, and not using them. In other words, you could do a mileage run without doing the miles. As it is, the need to devote 200 hours to the cause (for a level that requires 100K miles; YMMV) minimizes that.

I must admit that, contrary to some other airline rules, this one makes some sense. I'm glad my status isn't diluted by everyone who can spare $3K or so for the same thing.

If the airlines figured there was money in selling tickets to people who didn't fly (and just took miles), they would do it in a second. Last time I looked, they were all losing billions of dollars.

When I saw this new rule, I emailed American airlines to let them know how I felt about it. In the email response I got they said the reason was that this was a 'perishable item' and if I didn't make the flight, they had no way to re-sell my seat.

Well, if that is the case, then how do they explain overbooked flights? It seems to me, they already re-sold my seat counting on me not showing up....at a premium price no less.

I have read that they are required to refund the taxes and airport fees on an unused "non-refundable" ticket when requested, but they don't do it very often because so few people are aware of it. Can anybody here confirm whether this is true?
It seems only fair to me that I shouldn't have to pay government taxes or service/security fees for something that I didn't actually use. Plus, it would give me some satisfaction to show them that if they want to play hardball by making the tickets non-refundable, then they can share some of the pain by spending $20 or $30 in administrative/labor costs to refund my $15 or $20 in taxes and fees on a domestic ticket.

You will only get miles if you fly, that will probably never change. if it did, as mentioned above, people would buy status and not take the flights, buying tickets for very little money, taking up a seat the airline could have sold the week before for five times what you paid.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by dogcanyon:
I have read that they are required to refund the taxes and airport fees on an unused "non-refundable" ticket when requested, but they don't do it very often because so few people are aware of it. Can anybody here confirm whether this is true?
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Would this be true on an unused mileage award too? I think I'm going to have to redeposit the miles for two transatlantic awards (and get hit with $200 in fees http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/mad.gif )
but I sure would like my $46 in taxes back on each. Make it a little easier to bear.


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I Love New York -- Viva España

It would seem right to me. Last year, I had to return a BA trans-Atlantic award ticket. It cost me GBP 35 or something like that for fees, but I got more than that back from the refunded taxes.

You will get the taxes back when you forfeit (reinstate) an award ticket.

Let me know if anybody has figured out a way to get the taxes back on an unused non-refundable ticket. Thanks!

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ff

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Fly first class now or your children will</font>

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by freakflyer:
No such luck. However, it would be nice if at least you got your taxes back!</font>


very good point. there's no reasons we should pay the security fee if we aren't even being inspected, for example.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Redhead:

Would this be true on an unused mileage award too? I think I'm going to have to redeposit the miles for two transatlantic awards (and get hit with $200 in fees http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/mad.gif )
but I sure would like my $46 in taxes back on each. Make it a little easier to bear.


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I had a flight delay on the first segment of an award ticket to S. America that was so sever, I gave up the whole trip. They gave me my miles back without any fees for redepositing them, and promised to refund my credit card for the $26.40 in taxes. That was over 2 months ago and no a penny back on my Mastercard yet. Don't get your hopes up!

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Efrem:
Their reason for not giving you the miles is that, if they did, people with a little money to burn could buy status by buying cheap tix to anywhere, any time there's a good special, and not using them. In other words, you could do a mileage run without doing the miles. As it is, the need to devote 200 hours to the cause (for a level that requires 100K miles; YMMV) minimizes that.

I must admit that, contrary to some other airline rules, this one makes some sense. I'm glad my status isn't diluted by everyone who can spare $3K or so for the same thing.</font>

Hold the phone, what exactly would be wrong with that? By definition, if someone does not fly enough to get status, they aren't diluting your status. They aren't on planes at all.

If I were UA, I'd sell 1K for $3 grand to anyone stupid enough to pay for it.

I gotta side with skofarrel on this one. If an airline is offering a special for a particular flight, then it probably means they aren't expecting to sell out the flight in the first place. Why would it be a problem for an airline to allow people to "buy" miles this way. They let you buy them on their websites? If anything, if the plane takes off with out that passenger, they at least save money on drinks, etc.

The argument that they are displacing a potential full fare paying passenger who books only 6 days in advance, is ultimately not valid. Airlines will most likely still sell this seat. If a guy paying $1000 bumps a guy paying $200 and the guy gets say $400 in compensation, the airline still makes more money.

I agree with others that this probably will not change anytime soon, but it could work to the airlines' advantage if they changed it, IMHO.

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"I just wanna wish you good luck, we're all counting on you"
-Dr. Rumack

While not economic suicide, offering "status for unflown miles" would be a serious economic hurt for the airlines. As we all know, FF programs really operate on the concept that most miles never get redeemed.

However, people who would take advantage of this would be the kind of people that not only would redeem, but in the most expenseive fashion possible.

I'll take AA and myself as an example. If you told me I could get credit for unflown tickets, I'd jump on it.

Without even getting into complex math, we know that right now you can, with a little planning (very little) fly OAK-JFK for $255 r/t. That's a tick over 5,000 status miles per trip. With aa.com booking and my current PLT status, that's basically 11,000 miles total per trip.

So, January 1, I spend $5,100 and I get:

103,040 status miles
226,080 total miles credited
EXP status
40 domestic upgrade points
16 VIPOWs (8 for making it, 8 for next year)

And I'd be the kind of person who would at least break even on the miles, since my wife and I would use them to fly business class somewhere.

Even if I "just" converted 200,000 miles into 64 more domestic upgrade points (since I'm largely a domestic flyer), that would work out to:

26,000 miles
104 domestic upgrades
16 VIPOW
and EXP status for two years.

Heck of a deal. And, like I said, that's not even getting into complex routings or anything. It's right off the top of my head.

Steve

So, hypothetically, what if the airlines gave you the miles, but those miles didn't count towards status?

There is also the argument if you didn't need to fly to earn miles on a purchased ticked on a frequent flyer program, one could play with their website enough and devise some absolutely impossible to keep flight with a zillion connections just to get the most miles as possible. People will find loopholes in the system, taking away all these seats that they can no longer book, which nets them less per flight than people who just need to fly between these connections. Book a flight from L.A. to Las Vegas that goes around the world six times for 200,000 miles first, with no need to worry about showing up for the flights, or whether it can be done. The airlines probably see this potential abuse.




[This message has been edited by burgerwars (edited 09-26-2002).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by swag:
So, hypothetically, what if the airlines gave you the miles, but those miles didn't count towards status?</font>


Well, many airlines do let you buy miles anyway. I think through amex, the rate is $500 per 20,000 miles. So if you need 100,000 not status miles, it's cheaper to spend $2500 without a ticket than $5000 with a ticket.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by dogcanyon:
I have read that they are required to refund the taxes and airport fees on an unused "non-refundable" ticket when requested, but they don't do it very often because so few people are aware of it. Can anybody here confirm whether this is true?
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No such luck. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum21/HTML/007451.html

The airlines won't credit miles for unflown flight for the exact reasons sllevin illustrated.

I see no reason why the airlines couldn't simply sell status, $3000 for Premier Exec/Plat or $5000 for 1K/Exp...

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by skofarrell:
I see no reason why the airlines couldn't simply sell status, $3000 for Premier Exec/Plat or $5000 for 1K/Exp... [/B]</font>

They already do -- $2500/year. That's the only major benefit I can see to the Amex Centurion Card (http://home3.americanexpress.com/corp/latestnews/centurion_launch.asp).

Centurion also requires $150k spend in a calendar on an Amex card to get "invited". Not that easy for most...

Do the airlines really remit the taxes on a nonrefundable ticket that I cannot make or do they put it in their pocket. HMMM...

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by tazi:
When I saw this new rule, I emailed American airlines to let them know how I felt about it. In the email response I got they said the reason was that this was a 'perishable item' and if I didn't make the flight, they had no way to re-sell my seat.

Well, if that is the case, then how do they explain overbooked flights? It seems to me, they already re-sold my seat counting on me not showing up....at a premium price no less.</font>


I don't see why they care: The seat is paid for. They don't *need* to resell it...