Originally Posted by periperi

It's sort of like casino card counting -- not illegal, but the casino can ban you as it's against their policies/T&Cs/whatever.... So too can United ban you from MileagePlus by making this behavior against their CoC. The intent piece only comes into play for criminal prosecutions; and nobody is seriously suggesting that a criminal prosecution is a likely outcome, though it's still an *arguable* one in the rare cases where intent can be established beyond a reasonable doubt.