Originally Posted by
mvoight
If this is the case, then that wouldn't seem wise as it violates the terms of the program. It's a risk for the both the person donating them and the person who gets tickets in such a manner.
I'm not sure about that. The violation comes when someone sells miles or exchanges them for something of value right? I need to go read the fine, fine print.
I'm pretty sure you're allowed to donate miles to charities directly -- ie you can donate miles to a hospital that then uses them to fly sick children to get medical care by asking you to book tickets out of their account.
In this particular case, it could be someone who says "I'll fly the highest bidder on your charity auction anywhere that takes 300k miles" and it's a similar case. Note the massive difference here is that
the person giving away the miles gets nothing of value in exchange which should be OK and
the person "buying" the miles isn't buying them at all, as every single dollar is going to a charity as a donation.
That's one way to look at it, and I think there's some precedent here. I know people have posted about giving away miles tickets to their favorite charity, church, or servicemembers group, so this may be in that category.
There are other likely scenarios too. Anyone can buy miles direct from AA to use as a promo incentive, from cheesmakers on down. Maybe a charity got a favorable rate, to use in this auction or AA donated themselves.
On your point though, I'm not sure and it's worth checking, but I think if I wanted to put two milesaaver tickets up for my church auction, say, and someone bid on them and "paid" for them but the money went to the church
and I never saw a dime, I think I'm allowed to do that under AA's TOS. Though I've never asked.