People Barred From Booking OW Awards?
 

Had a rather talkative, if a little bit odd, aagent on the phone last night. I was calling to make some changes to an OW award, and she started talking about how she doesn't really like booking OW awards for people anymore because certain people try to manipulate the rules. I responded to this by asking what she meant exactly, but her answer didn't really give any explanation. She said something along the lines of "well they call in and ask 'can you do this, can you do this, can you do this?' and then they call back and say "DO THIS!" At that point, of course, I wondered whether I was encountering a rogue agent who had just lost her mind a little. Nevertheless, she then followed by saying, "yes, in fact, AAdvantage has actually barred a number of people from booking oneworld awards ever again because of this."

I'm curious to see whether anyone has any idea what she might have been talking about. How would it be possible to manipulate an OW award to the extent that you would deserve getting barred from booking any in the future? Somewhat interesting, I thought.....

See, another reason not to post too many tricks here on FT. Perhaps they read these and compile the "banned" list from it :)

Cheers.

That last question is easy-- we've seen it here. But the fact they might "deserve" something in the eyes of AA (and others) and whether such a "banning" has ever taken place is two very different issues and, in cases like this, it's always safer to assume the AAgent was just making it up.

It's far, far more likely that such a "banned" list applies to people who violated the rules of a very complicated OW award (which can be very tempting-- and best not detailed here) and/or used the award in such a way that AAdvantage had an excuse to say "fool us once..."

That's far, far more likely than what she said as-is. Trust me. :)

... or forgot to take her meds.

...or remembered too well.

Cheers.

Some of what you said makes me think they didn't like the fact that OW awards require more time and may be prone to multiple calls (due to complicated routings). Was the agent really complaining about that? Or was it strictly a complaint about people getting "too much" for their miles?

I'm sure they could cut down on call time, if they had an online search for OW availability (even if complicated bookings still had to be done by phone).

I just helped a friend with a star alliance award after US Air told him there was nothing available. By spending some time online I probably saved him and the agent at least an hour of call time.

One further thought; when I see "..well they call in and ask 'can you do this, can you do this, can you do this?" and "certain people try to manipulate the rules"-- what that says to me is they are trying to get the agent to bend (or break) the rules and/or trip the agent up (overnight stopovers, transit vs. stopover, etc.) That exact person is the same person who would have a high likelihood of trying to play around with the ticket once they have it, and, in some cases, get caught doing so-- and maybe even doing so on a repeat basis..

But as far as a prophylactic banning of some folks based on them working the system "legally", I don't buy it. But I'll ask and find out.

Wouldn't you expect such a person, to the extent AA were to take action against them, to be banned from the entire AAdvantage program as opposed to just a limited suspension preventing them from booking OW awards?

I wonder if the agent who was "duped" gets into some kind of trouble when they allow someone to do something they're not supposed to and how often does it happen.

Mmmmm, well, maybe. They do seem to do things incrementally in such cases with the most severe penalties reserved for recidivist offenders-- and taking someone's miles/status away is far more likely to result in legal action, etc. Might be just people who get monster OW awards and then "get creative" with it on a regular basis.
But I do think overall it's unlikely that what the agent in the OP said-- as proffered (and as relayed to us)-- has much credence to it.

Those mistakes invariably are caught later down the line and before they are ticketed. It's very, very tough to get a OW award issued w/ mistakes in it.

In my limited experience (luckily never having been punished, only having been told what the punishment would be), AA does go for a "proportional" response to AAdvantage rule violations. So it would not surprise me if the punishment for some kind of OW award violation were prohibition against booking OW awards, as opposed to a more extensive punishment.

Remember that they want to keep you as a customer... they just don't want you to exploit the system. If they banned from AAdvantage everyone who tried to break a rule, they'd accomplish the second but not the first.

Good point. One irony, many of the people who are rules violators are also very good customers.
Even among our little community, those here who have been caught doing one thing or another are-- as often as not-- higher rev, long term, very loyal, mid/top tier AA customers. Go figure. :)

I hope this truly applies to those breaking rules not those taking advantage of them. If AA doesn't like the way the program is (legally) used, they could just change the rules (???)