Originally Posted by
beachmouse
From skimming down the thread in the credit card sub-board, it seems like someone figured out that a) opening up a new AA frequent flyer account generated a credit card offer with a good sign up bonus but that b) that sign-up bonus offer code was single use but not tied to a specific FF account. So they'd create multiple frequent flyer accounts under fake names where the credit card sign up bonus offer post card or e-mail was generated, and then use the code from the postcard to get a new card under their own name with their own SSN. And Citi was okay with these 'targeted' offers despite limiting general sign-up bonuses for that kind of product.
Until someone at Citi or AA seems to have decided it wasn't okay anymore.
The mailers had been going on for years. You didn't necessarily have to have fake accounts, they could have been sent to friends, family, co-workers, etc and you could just use that code to bring up the offer. The offer had no T&C language regarding who could or couldn't use the code, 24 month restrictions, etc. They also had where you'd call or send a secure message saying "I just signed up for my 20th AA card with the last four digits being 1234, can I match from my current 60k offer to 75k miles" and they'd add 15k miles to your account.
The emailers started a few months ago and were sent out by AA with very specific "this offer is only valid for sethMCOflyer and can't be transferred."