wiivile

No one's arguing that pets are actually eligible for AAdvantage accounts, but AA is going to have a hard time determining who simply made an account for all eight (8) human members of their household, got eight (8) mailers and used them all (which is not against any T's and C's), or who created accounts in the name of their household's pets, plants, or cockroaches solely to generate mailers. And of course, the mailers don't even have to be from the same household, especially now that they're emailed so you don't need access to a physical address. Maybe I made an account for my coworker Jane Smith and she let me have her mailer. Nothing fraudulent about that: Citi lets you change the name/AAdvantage number on the application.

It's funny that we are aware of at least 1-2 people having had their account shut down and miles confiscated while the very loophole of which we speak remains open. If they were truly interested in stopping this, they would have stopped the mailers/approvals/bonuses long ago. IANAL but I believe there is a legal term for knowing about an issue such as this and failing to take action to prevent it, and it is a powerful legal defense (laches?). Citi/AA could be accused of wanting to have their cake (increasing sign up numbers and average credit score for metrics purposes) and eat it too (shutting down members who are gaming the system too hard).

There are a lot of holier-than-thou industry veterans in this forum, who are very protective of their elite status and butt-in-seat miles and are bitter toward those gaming the system, so nobody's going to get neutral opinions here. It has always surprised me that FlyerTalk has such a vibrant credit card churning community in the Points/Miles/Card Cards forums, because there is a lot of palpable bitterness toward those who have managed to garner thousands, if not millions, more miles than the actual butt-in-seat flyers. But I don't blame the butt-in-seat flyers for being bitter; it's become harder and harder to use miles because they have been given out like candy, so there is more competition for award space.