Originally Posted by The Lev

I may be misunderstanding your post, but what a couple of others here have correctly pointed out is that "the miles you _GET_ for the initial purchase of the plane ticket" are only posted 2-4 weeks after the travel you purchased has been completed. Presumably one of the reasons for this is to prevent fraud. Otherwise you could book full fare refundable tickets, get the points, book a reward flight then cancel all of flights for full refund.