Originally Posted by
MattDXB
Agreed, I didn't advocate for "if they're ignorant then let them off".
My point is that the hardest part is detecting them, whether the flyer is ignorant or fully aware is immaterial. Clearly for AP to have gone to the extreme lengths they have over the past few months, they are having difficulties in detecting the cases.
Sounds like these guys might not be in China.
This said, if the thing involves (1) creating new accounts for bookings with no aeroplan numbers and (2) using these to obtain flexible rewards, they could first place a hold on the tickets, having the account holder have to phone before they can cancel, and also contact the person in whose name a new aeroplan account was opened, presumably by the fraudster instead of the person who travelled.
If you add to this the mils having been placed into a family pool, that already reduces the number of potential cases to a relatively small fraction of rewards/accounts.