Visconti

Ok, how about this. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you think this is common knowledge? Or, those allegedly caught up in AA's purge weren't aware of this?

wiivile

Most corporate-drafted contracts or terms of service are written like this. Most first-draft legal documents are written one-sided like this. It is generally up to the other side's counsel to make the contract more balanced.

Of course, it is not feasible for every AA flyer/AAdvantage member have their own lawyer look at the CoC, make edits, and return it to AA. So in general the corporate-written terms are the ones that stay. If you were a big enough customer of AA's, like Walmart (?), you likely have your own negotiated contract with AA that supersedes the boilerplate terms. But there isn't going to be this level of back-and-forth between AA and every customer.

In light of this, many terms end up being overly one-sided, and in the event of dispute, the courts generally interpret the language to be more neutral as if it had been negotiated from the start. In addition, any contract or terms are subject to relevant laws of fair dealing, etc. So don't look at AA's terms/contracts, see how one-sided they are, and assume that AA is some sort of god. They aren't.

Honestly, this is an often-raised criticism of FT, but Stockholm syndrome seems to be taking hold in this thread. People involved in an ecosystem for way too long become aggressively defensive of that ecosystem. It reminds me of posters in Apple forums, when Apple makes a design decision like the below mouse charger and longtime Apple customers defend it:

sethMCOflyer

Everyone knew there were risks that the ability to so easily churn these cards would one day come to an end, just as every other bank has put an end to it. The thought was that Citi would wisen up and close the holes in their sign up process. No one expected that AA would suddenly consider getting multiple of the credit cards they hawk in flight abuse and cancel everyone’s trips, confiscate miles, and shut down accounts.

Global321

A clear rule violation.

IMHO - I think it is clear using someone else's voucher would be against the rules. But that is just my opinion.

sethMCOflyer

What rules? Citi rules or AA rules?

Visconti

Not suggesting AA would do this, and only speaking for myself. Not to seem like a monster (ok, I admit, couldn't care less if anyone thought I was a monster), but if in my business the above referenced granny engaged in the same or similar type of activity in which I've purged other clients, I would do the same. No exceptions. No favoritism. I run an algorithm absent of emotion and everyone it spits out gets ripped a new one.

Visconti

Where I come from, this is called a miscalculation. Predicting future events are uncertain, at best.

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

Don't know the numbers but surely AA gave this a lot of analysis, thought and legal guidance. Depending upon the numbers this may have gone to the C suite for a decision. Most assured AA's cc partners were brought in on the discussion. I'm presuming that number one the cost of providing reward flights to cc churners far exceeded the revenue from selling miles. Two, the Legal Department gave its blessing and likely recommend a closing of accounts with no method for AAdvantage holders to dispute. Finally, while AA seems not to have made any official comment on this action unofficially constant cc churners are being told that AA doesn't want their business.

joe_miami

Out of ~1,000 members, I counted three people who didn’t believe they were innocent victims. Three. I didn’t “mischaracterize” anything.

Anyway, as predicted, the Bloomberg story is a disaster for AA churners. All it accomplished was to remind bank, airline, and hotel executives to watch out for program abuse.

Visconti

Pretty common sense stuff, right? Kind of how like I received, say, a letter delivered across State lines from the USPS addressed to someone else. Ah, not only do I open a USPS letter addressed to another person, but upon finding a wad of cash with a letter declaring "for Dim Kettle," I decide that possession is 9/10ths of the law and keep the money for myself.

Global321

Citi rules:
American Airlines AAdvantage® bonus miles are not available if you have received a new account bonus for a Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive account in the past 48 months.

AA Rules:
Members may only participate in this Offer with one (1) AAdvantage® account. If a Member is found to be participating with multiple AAdvantage® accounts, all bonus miles earned from this Offer will be forfeited and removed from the Member’s account.

Seems pretty clear to me.

GUWonder

I would be curious to know what the biggest single mileage account balance was for any of the account shut-downs that happened for this.

Even as there are various types of people who may be considered "sophisticated" "gamers" and probably various types who got hit by the account shutdowns of the sort that headline this thread, if the most "sophisticated" "gamers" with the account shutdowns of this sort had expected they were at risk of account closure from AA over card application SUBs, then they more likely would have expected an AA account shutdown and they would have had little to nothing to complain about at this point. Why? Because they would not want to have much, if any skin, in the game come time of AA account shutdowns over this and they would have already reduced their exposure to loss from AA account shutdowns. They would have set up and run down the account mileage balances very quickly and probably far more creatively than gets talked about a lot here (if at all). Those are the kind of customers that push the limits to such an extent that they know they are doing something wrong and go in knowing full well that they should expect to get fired by AA. But the people who didn't take such extreme measures to wipe-out big balances from lots of SUBs are probably the people who thought this game would end with Citi doing what other banks do, that is shutting down SUBs on card applications but AA not doing much of anything about it. I would expect the latter to be more common than the former.

joe_miami

Exactly right. These guys talk about mailers like they were nameless drink coupons, but the reality is that the allegedly acceptable “transferability” only happened if the user correctly entered the recipient’s info on the landing page before changing the name to their own (or their spouse, sibling, etc.) on the next page.

joe_miami

I’ve seen multiple reports of people losing over 1,200,000 miles as well as families losing over 2,000,000 combined.

Visconti

LOL...yeah. Imagine, if my defense upon stealing a car were, "I didn't know I was stealing the car. It's just another Black SBC and thought it was mine." But, I had to jimmy the car, hot wire it before driving off, and then bring it to the hoc shop to change the reg & plated before driving it home to my garage as my own.

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