ijgordon

I think more specifically, it’s “pay it or you’re done with AAdvantage”. I’d be surprised if OP were banned from actually flying AA, assuming he pays for his tickets.

Exec_Plat

Pay the $21k with the old card.

But quickly transfer out your miles before they catch on!




But seriously, this reminds me of the guy that would go through the AA system to book a reservation to be able to see the Business Class map, then cancel. He didnt realize this process took seats out of inventory, and did it repeatedly. AA came after him. IMO presenting a card as payment is FAR more egregious than cancelling a speculative booking before reaching the purchase point.

Eujeanie

I remember that case, but I really didn't understand it...how can that happen unless you are logged into your account? And why would you do it IF you were logged into your account? It's ok just to look at flights and seats without signing in, right? (I think we all do that).

I got some AA award tickets just a few days ago, and I was surprised that the "hold" on them was about 4-5 days, not 24 hours.

ryan182

Its perfectly OK to search for flights and click on the "Seats" link below each flight option (next to Details) to see how many seats are open in a given cabin even when logged in and if you're EXP being logged in also shows if SWU space is available. IIRC in the case of Mr Hayes would pick the flight he was interested in and go through the booking process until the Select Seats page, basically just before the payment page, which created a PNR and resulted in removing a seat from inventory until such time as that PNR aged out. Don't do that.

pa3lsvt

I don't know, isn't knowingly providing an invalid card number for a purchase considered fraud? At the least it was deceitful, and nothing the OP could say will ever convince me that they didn't know what they were doing was dishonest.

Even if OP never flew the tickets, they were preventing AA from selling the seats held in limbo and that cost AA money - and when someone costs AA money through fraud/deceit/dishonesty/whatever you want to call it, I eventually pay for it with increased fares. I'm glad to see them fire OP as a customer.

LovePrunes

And he gets everything snail mail to the VDB paper voucher address in FL lol

Not too hard to imagine, given the same IT gave us the in flight credit card purchase loophole people were talking about here when cash acceptance first stopped ...same MO..., using cancelled credit cards and empty gift cards for in flight food and drinks, knowing they wouldn't be declined till processed on landing, and by then the scammer was gone. AA IT is pretty bad.

AeRoSpaceman

Hey Hey now. The place those vouchers go to/come from is literally a one minute drive or a five minute walk from my house. Not joking here. It's a nice area, sorry for the slow mail though..

jordyn

Definitely not all of them say that.

Yes, that says that if you don't successfully ticket by midnight one day later the reservation is not valid. What it does not say, and what Often1 asserted, is that by clicking "Pay Now" you agree to ticket regardless of whether or not the payment is successful or that even if they don't ticket you owe them money. Nice try, though.

jordyn

Sure, but if you swipe you card and it doesn't work and you DON'T take your groceries home, you don't still owe them for the groceries by virtue of attempting to swipe. AA never actually ticketed any of these reservations.

mvoight

Ah, April 1

JonNYC

No

ryan182

I think you guys are all arguing over a hypothetical and this has devolved into a pointless exercise of "I must win this keyboard argument". That said, and against my better judgement, I'll just say while I agree with your interpretation regarding fare rules I would be surprised if knowingly using an invalid credit card to process an online transaction didn't run afoul of some federal statute (this is just my layperson assumption ,not a lawyer). As stated by others I think its unlikely AA would go after him civilly (they've made their point with account closure/miles confiscation) and I think they would have difficulty showing actual damages in the amount they stated but if it is in fact a violation of some law to do what they did they have exposure there and posting about it is probably not super smart. Either way, seems the OP is unlikely to return, not sure what else anyone could possibly add on this subject that hasn't been said several times..
/thread

jordyn

Who knows? Maybe it's wire fraud. Like you, I really have no idea what the fraud statues and case law state.

What I do know is that nothing on AA's website says that when you click "Pay Now" you owe them money even if your payment fails and they don't issue a ticket.

AeRoSpaceman

Anyone want police reports(again)? We are arguing among ourselves now. The OP posted a few times and has never returned with any validation of their claim. We all learned a few new or old things in this thread. Let's not let it get worse.. I vote for closure.

xliioper

Joel Hayes and "fictitious" bookings. They only charged him 60K miles, so not nearly as bad.

Hayes, USDOT and AA: "fictitious bookings" and checking for upgrade space