That is the $64,000 question! One answer might be the airlines will most likely lose the lawsuit. The carriers would have more power enforcing their own company policies and making the consequences of violation much tougher than if the courts came up with a law. Currently, laws have very little teeth in the travel industry regarding frequent flyer programs. Airlines can currently close or freeze your frequent flyer account if you are caught trading, bartering or selling your miles...

Also, no matter what anyone thinks here, selling a "cardboard 100 mile certificate without a serial number" that provides 100 American Airlines AAdvantage miles is still selling 100 American Airlines AAdvantage miles. This indeed violates American Airlines' policies and procedures when it is done on eBay or anywhere else.

American Airlines' eBay police up until a couple of months ago were discouraging people from selling these Kellogg's certificates on eBay by sending sellers the dreaded email which informed them they would lose their AAdvantage accounts and the purchaser would lose their account if American Airlines' AAdvantage Department discovered the guilty member's name.

When AA was enforcing this, just about 100% of the sellers pulled their eBay ads down. In fact, there were weeks at a time when you did not see Kellogg's AAdvantage miles being sold on eBay...so the enforcement was working. Brazen sellers resorted to placing "private bids" to protect the purchaser's eBay username and promote their auctions in this manner.

AA must believe that selling miles is selling miles any way you look at it...whether it is on a Kellogg's certificate or to a ticket broker. I would tend to agree with them...however, I can see Doc's point about testing this matter in court. If the airlines lose in court, it could be a multi-billion dollar loss which would most likely would change the way we customers deal with frequent traveler programs...and most likely would not be to our advantage as frequent customers.

Even if it went to court and the airlines win, it would most likely hurt them in the long run because a partial victory could be a loss to them in terms of money and policy to protect the integrity of their program.

I can certainly understand why they would not want this to go to court...just look at the ruling that Doc just quoted.