Originally Posted by
hfly
Unfortunate, but you can find scores of similar stories from AF/KL, BA, and many other carriers and Hotel chains. It would seem that there are tons of scams out there involving people opening up new accounts dumping huge amounts of points in them and airlines do not like that. There are all sorts of scams, not just mileage brokers playing games, but purloined mileage accounts or transfers, phantom people , and all sorts of things. So while what you went through was ridiculous, it is not solely a TK thing.
This doesn't really make much sense to me. I mean I don't disagree with the problems and scams you are calling out, but it seems there are other ways TK could verify identity than "you have to fly once alone first" I mean that is nonsensical. If worried about the things you are listing, why would they even let you fly alone on an award ticket? I mean if opening an account, dumping lots of miles in it, then booking only yourself on an award, you could still be running a scam, no?
I guess I'd really like to understand if this is true or not. I've never seen this mentioned/addressed on any of the more common award booking blogs, etc. It seems to me if this is true it would get a lot more attention from bloggers, etc.
I'd been planning to create an account with Turkish and transfer points from Citi TY to book a flight for my wife and I to Europe, but this certainly changes the game if true...
Regards