Both of the last replies after my first long one are very good ones indeed. This is an excellent debate.

Yet, I do suppose it has to do with the HIGH AMOUNT of miles we are talking about here.

It is not money, but that does not make it NOT the same kind of thing/thinking.

However, it is a large amount... And yes, I suppose if they accidentally took my miles of that magnitude, or if someone FOUND my money I had lost, or whatever, I would be inclined to wonder where they went. But in here, because they ARE miles, we all need to remember something:

Right now at least, ALLLLL these miles we speak of out there are INVENTED and credited or debited by no standards or means like money or even inventory of any goods that exist elsewhere. They are fake currency in all senses of the word. Thus, this could be the exception to any other moralistic rules... the apple in Eden, the one margin of error in an otherwise harmonius attempt at some final judgement that you NEVER took advantage of a good thing in your favor...

Miles are little buggers that I think of as just not fitting the norm. The airlines make them up and practically any agent can create and generate, and debit any miles in your account and at any time. I suppose they only have a rather thin line of "honor system" type thinking to go by that prevents them from just changing it all on a whim--and yet we have all seen that happen too!

The only reference I know of that miles have a REAL value standard of any kind is when you have to buy some (roughly $27 per 1000 has become the norm) or when an airline like Continental once let people transfer the miles off one act into thier own and VS. by paying something like $5 per every so many hundred (back in the spring?). This could essentially "zero out" a person's acct (I did this using my wife's and my accts so that she now had 35k but mine had 0, which is one free ticket to the Caribean as opposed to two people having two FF accts with some useless amounts each in them).

The airline could now argue that it trimed some form of revenue, perhaps, or slimmed down its FF base size and could also report that people USED AWARDS or MILES which may have made them look cool to all those who invest or want to pick a program that sounded solid compared to the rest.

Miles are not real. They have no paper or even numeric status, other than what we have all come to aspire to. 60,000 miles = 60,000 what? Today that is a free first class ticket to one place and tomorrow, with no reference to laws of money or exchange rates in any country I know of, that figure could be worth one free ticket to nothing! It might get you an Amazon.com gift certificate one day, for all we know! I do not mean to be a cynic, but in my opinion, they do not even exist until or unless you mention them to the airline. Once you do redeem them, if you ever get to, they are gone anyhow. Will the flight have its own new troubles that made it tolerable because at least you got it for free (plus fees to change, redeposit, upgrade, not use, change airports or the like?) They have no held-on value... They are hype-inventions that you and I and millions of other rely on and self-create (and hopefully use) and we are in a great period in our lives where they now exist for the taking and so we take em.

I still say that you dont have to admit you know that you have them just yet. Wait and see in like 6 weeks. Then make the call. I suppose this one is to each his/her own. I dont know, for example, if I should really transfer 5000 UAL miles to HHilton just so I can now get tons of new junk mail and spam from partner stuff from joining up yet another thing (the hotel chain and its points program) and if this will save me anything in the long run. I probably will but I guess its a good thing I am using UAL miles to transfer into them and not AA ones. Somehow, though the two airlines are very similar in many ways, one gives you 10k HH points for that conversion and the other gives you only 5k. Gee, I wish I had an extra few thou miles laying around to justify the loss just for having been in the right place (or program) at the right time! You were when you got that error posted to yourself!

Take it... wax on, wax off!
(BTW, in a marathon, I did not cheat. I earned all 26.2 and took the time they gave me, but that is a bit different I think.)