Originally Posted by
Helena Handbaskets
2. Airline knows a particular passenger is flying on an award purchsed with miles not from his own account. Using that as a criterion, they challenge the passenger upon boarding, requiring information about the identity of the donor. "Just to confirm that everything is legitimate, sir... you understand." When an unsatisfactory response ensues, and if enough suspicions are aroused, the airline may threaten to deny boarding. They may offer to allow the passenger to fly in return for a full, verifiable disclosure of the source of the miles. At this point, if the passenger confesses that the award was purchased, it doesn't even matter whether he discloses the site used to broker the deal. At that point the airline once again knows which award was sold for cash, and can easily determine which account the miles came from.
How is this different than if you do a trade on CC and your trading partner needs to answer questions about the identity of the account holder where the miles were taken from to book the ticket? According to airlines' T&C they don't allow barter either. I know this has been discussed b/4, but according to this point you would have the same issue with bartering as with selling when it comes to verifying details about the account holder.