Yeah right and AA will just sit there and let it happen if it becomes a sport for the masses. In the worst case they'll assess that some sort of fraud has to be involved, ask AI where those miles come from, ask MS and get confirmed that you're violating their rules. US, DL and F9 btw all have rules that do not allow multiple accounts.
I guess that as long as you give them a valid reason they will let you join the accounts but what reason could we give? is the kinda the same as the free miles per signup bonus, account creation for free miles. Let's hope we don't need to do that at the end!
I just hope that dont do that. Honestly there is no point for just 4000 miles or so. Maybe I will just build up points and donate. Cost them more that way then giving me miles I figure. Maybe if everyone does it we can get them to at least change it back. I really don't see why miles are a big problem for them, botters can't really overutilize and they cant be sold. I just want miles back dang it.
Maybe you have more info than I do, but I've never seen a value put on tickets donated to charity. If they've not actually specified this, then they could make a very small donation for the tickets used that way and it would cost them very little. Since they no doubt have to pay the airlines -- or Air Incentives, or whoever -- for the FF miles, it seems to me that they could easily be spending a lot of money for those. So they might be happy to see more charity donations and less FF redemptions. Having said that, though, I would have thought that if they felt they were spending too much on FF mile redemptions the easiest way to fix that would be to require more tickets for the various FF prizes. They'd certainly have less irate users than they would if they applied redemption limits being discussed here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Airon
Before the T/C said that the hardware had limitations 1 per household but said nothing about prizes like song downloads. Now that song downloads appear it makes you wonder if miles are also in the same bag. That would be just unfair. Specially because songs have a lot to do with copyrights while miles don't have that much restrictions. I say we ask again and show our worries, we are after all giving LSC more searches. This would lower our participation if not stopping it.
Yes, we're giving LSC zillions of searches, but are they of any real use to Microsoft? I don't know how LSC make their money from searches, but the way Google used to do it -- I say "used to" because I don't know whether they still do -- they were paid only when people clicked on the ads displayed. If all we do is make searches and ignore them -- I resize the game playing window so that all I can see is the game so that I'm not distracted by the search part of the window refreshing every time I enter an answer -- then they'll be getting no revenue from me to offset the cost of any prizes I earn. I expect most other game players also ignore the search window except, perhaps, when using it to get a game hint.
If this is the way things really work, then all Microsoft are getting is bragging rights -- their search engine is getting a lot of use. Perhaps that's worth a lot to them. But if all that's generated by this use is a big expense for prizes, then eventually they'll come to their senses and put a stop to the party. In the meantime, let's enjoy it.
PS. If anyone here knows that just the action of our searching is actually generating revenue for Microsoft, then please let us know that as it would be very good news for the longevity of the scheme.
I just read something the other day in the business pages that live search has gained something like 7% market share in the search arena over last quarter...or something like that...while they will always be way behind Google and Yahoo, the article seemed to indicate that MS was happy with their search engine growth.
For what it is worth, it kind of sounds positive...
There was an article posted on may about how this was a winning situation for microsoft more than for the users. It's the never ending Microsoft empire Vs google ordeal.
Article
Maybe you have more info than I do, but I've never seen a value put on tickets donated to charity.
If you donate to a charity you can watch the donation counter go up as 1 cent per ticket donated... So I think its a pretty good bet thats the value.
I agree though, they aren't making money (directly) from our searches, they are just gaining mindshare and search volume to inflate the rank of live search --what that does though, is make advertisers perceive live search as a better place to send ad dollars... Either way, LSC is a marketing tool which clearly costs MS money, but I think these changes are short sighted. Heavy users will drop this program as soon as it stops paying dividends (and will probably leave with a negative view of live search because of the terms).
Yeah right and AA will just sit there and let it happen if it becomes a sport for the masses. In the worst case they'll assess that some sort of fraud has to be involved, ask AI where those miles come from, ask MS and get confirmed that you're violating their rules. US, DL and F9 btw all have rules that do not allow multiple accounts.
AA just sit there? They sell the miles to Air Incentives for $. They have no interest, absolutely none in not selling the miles to Air Incentives.
Air Incentives has no interest, absolutely none in limiting redemptions via MSN live.
MSN probably doesn't have much interest in limiting redemptions unless they've discovered people redeeming all rewards now, not just the game hardware, are using Bots.
Think about the reverse of the situation. Does MSN Live share anything more than aggregate data to the advertisers who pay them? Doubtful. If the advertisers knew how much of their money was going to Live Search gamers they'd probably have run away screaming from MSN a long time ago, as there is nearly a 0% chance that the gamers buy anything during gameplay/searches.
Asking party x to ask party y where the original purchase money came from is an absolute cluster**** and I would likely guess that at each point in the chain some privacy policy would likely be violated, giving said party an "excuse" to deny information to the other party. Maybe, maybe not, but it is likely that whichever accounts are flagged/closed/denied redemptions are purely information MSN has, I don't think anyone has confirmed that information from any partners has been shared, or am I wrong?
At any rate the best they can do is deny you a redemption. That's it. If you want to play the game, go ahead. If you don't, don't. I probably wouldn't go that route with multiple FF accounts. As I said before, doing multiple accounts and consolidating is too time consuming and irritating (from the number of times I have had to do it in the past many times, all successful, with no one, not one time, even asking 1 question "why?").
That being said, some people will try to do this and be successful. Even if you don't consolidate you could still set up multiple accounts at different family member's addresses and feed them miles from different opportunities such as this, eventually using them for a free ticket. More complicated, and delayed in reward, yes, but still possible.
As far as DL not allowing multiple accounts, I have had 2 due to Amex
(years ago) opening me one after not recording my DL# correctly. I don't remember if they called it consolidation, but the miles were taken from that account and placed into the correct account.
Be warned, don't transfer to DL unless you are okay with "only" your alloted redemption miles, as it looks like you've got zero chance to get any bonus.
500 points on signing up, but still waiting for them to be posted on Live Search Club
They won't post on LSC, Search Perks is not the same as LSC the points you get there won't be for the LSC account. It's a different promotion using live.com or any microsoft related searcher that ends on Aprill 2009
I mailed LSC to ask about miles. Because I think I have no other use for the program. I think the use will diminish drastically. I'll let you know if they answer. If you get any kind of reply post it also!
I'm not really sure what you hope to get from mailing them, but they'll only answer with their generic reply to check their prize section from time to time. They're ms search club live and not ff club live, if they even put limits on song downloads I don't see any ground to stand on.
They give complete answers from time to time. For starters I would like to know if the ToS is retroactive. I've a lot of miles in an Air Incentives limbo.
