Originally Posted by
LutherVP
Hi all,
Apologies if there's a consistent and clear answer to this somewhere - I searched and didn't find anything. Without getting into the details, I am hoping to use miles to book a flight for one of my grad students for an international trip, since this will help my grant money go much further. There's no problem on my end with the institutions involved (funder, university, etc.) but will AA flag this as potentially fraudulent? Does the fact that the student is not a US citizen complicate things further? Any advice on how to avoid trouble here, or reassurance that I'm being paranoid, would be appreciated.
I’ve done the same a number of times, and I’ve never had an iota of trouble over the years. I don’t buy, sell or trade so it’s fine. I fully disclose and often tell the agent exactly what I’m doing, e.g. “my friends live in Cambodia and are going to Scotland to visit family” (one is American the other is British - Scots).
Though there seems to be some straining of gnats in this thread, in this instance, there’s appears to be no quid pro quo at all: you’re offering free tickets to someone who already is your report / subordinate, and it would appear your gifting of air tickets would not alter the employment relationship or terms of employment. You have the choice to spend money from your budget, or miles from your AAdvantage account. Saving budgeted money to extend your budget or spend on something else by your using miles in this instance would be very difficult to classify as a sale, purchase or barter of your miles. Whether the research assistant flies on your award or not, they’re still your employee and providing research as work to you and your institution.