nrr

There is no statute of limitation on murder, many other "crimes" DO. But in the case of miles AA is the judge, jury and prosecutor--they can do what they want.

sbrower

I actually have a problem with that formulation assuming that there isn't more. That is, if AA says "we need a car rental receipt dated before April 1, 2020" and if you submit one which is unaltered which is dated "April 20, 2020" and AA says "thank you, that counts" then it is hard to call it fraud. Similarly, if it was true that AA was saying to John Flyertalk "send us a car rental receipt dated before April 1, 2020" and if he then submitted one (unaltered in any way) showing that the car was rented by Tim Ubercheats, and AA said "thank you, that counts" then it is hard to call it fraud. Is it really true that people were submitting car rental receipts that were not altered in ANY way, that SHOWED someone else's name, and AA was saying "Thank you, that works, your miles are reactivated"?

sethMCOflyer

If this is true this entire situation is pretty funny. I have a hard time believe that's what the majority of people caught up in this were doing but even if one person was doing that it's pretty funny.

sbrower

That's my point. When I heard this story I assumed that people were using their computer to change the name from "Mr. Ubercheats" or "Mr. Flyertalk." Then we have fraud. I have my doubts that AA is penalizing these people for submitting paperwork which CLEARLY showed that it wasn't them. Because it would be hard to express the "detrimental reliance" aspect of fraud in that circumstance (yes, I understand that AA isn't required to "prove" their case yet - but I am assuming rational conduct.)

QueenOfCoach

I am guessing that in years past, no one had the time to audit these car rental receipts. The car companies probably figured it was cheaper to let a few cheaters slip through than to do an proper audit.

Now, with business down and lots of folks working from home, they have the time and resources. Thus, they have found some cheaters and have reported them to AA as T&C violators.

Steve M

I used to work in an office that also had customer-facing telephone support agents, and would overhear them having to deal with customers that tried to game the system, finding creative ways around account rules and compliance issues. Many of these customers thought they were so clever. We'd occasionally get a situation that had not come up before, or was a corner case, and the agent would grant special dispensation to the customer. The next day, out of the blue, we'd get 5 other customers calling that miraculously had the exact same situation. Imagine that? It quickly became obvious that there was a message board somewhere where customers were sharing advice on how to game our system.

Agents will notice unusual patterns in stuff they deal with. Agents overhear other agents. Agents talk to each other when on break. And, even in a big organization like AA that might have thousands of reservation sales agents, the office that handles sent-in copies of non-airline partner transactions for back credit is probably rather small. Patterns that spring up out of nowhere, or suspiciously-similar documents being submitted, are going to be noticed quicker than you might think. And then once that happens, it's not hard to find all accounts that had expired but then reactivated with a non-airline partner credit, and then go back and look at the supporting documents more closely. Even workers that aren't primarily in a security role will enjoy identifying and shutting down such schemes.

sethMCOflyer

I get that the majority of these cases are likely complete fraud, altering someone else's receipt to make it appear to be your own, but don't you think AA has perhaps gone a bit far in all these schemes by banning customers instead of just fixing their own faults?

It seems like in this and other cases AA realizes they have a big loophole and instead of just closing it they go and terminate everyone who used it, regardless of their status level or profitability. I'm sure it probably feel great for them to punish customers, but it also seems a bit short sided to run off profitable customers. Telling any annoying customer to go f themself would probably feel great for a FA and potentially fully deserved by the customer, but it's probably a poor long term plan.

sbrower

First, I don't think I have seen anyone admit that there was alteration of the receipts. (I assume that is true. But the way I read the OP, and the comments after that, no one has actually admitted that what they were doing was CHANGING data on the receipt so that it had their name, then submitting it, then saying "Well, since AA doesn't care enough to call the car company and find out that I created a false document they must think its fine." IF that is what was actually happening (which is what I suspect, but I don't have any direct information) then it is not an "innocent" mistake. After all, if people "believed" that what AA was saying was "You can revive your old miles by sending us ANYONE's pre-dated car rental receipt, but before you submit it to us, PLEASE BE SURE TO CHANGE THE NAME SO WE KNOW WHO TO CREDIT." Who thought that was really the intention?

Second, you are assuming that these are the "good" customers. Now, I am sure there are exceptions. But how many regular "good" customers, who only had one AA account, hadn't earned a single mile of credit in 18 months? How can you be a "good" customer without having a qualifying transaction?

Third, do I think that AA is being unfair by terminating people without notice? No, not if it was the fraud version, because no one in good faith could think it was the intention of the program to allow submission of forged documents.

Dave Noble

A loophole is where there is a situation in rules that can be used to someones benefit that was not intended by the person setting the rules. There is nothing wrong with making use of loopholes

This is not a loophole - this is someone , rather than paying a fee ( if available) to get the miles back, is trying to reactivate miles by making claim that they actually had activity, when in fact they never did

If they are treating people who did this activity equally, this seems fair to me

MSPeconomist

I could understand someone submitting the receipt for a spouse or business colleague by mistake, one time only, However, if they *purchased* the rental car receipt from a stranger, that's totally different. I wonder whether there were "brokers" trading such receipts for money or whether the same receipt was used by many people as a result of some organized thing.

BTW, I somehow want to take a shower after looking at the DansDeals website.

IADCAflyer

How about the thread title of the main thread: " Buy/Sell Past Car Rentals To Reactivate Expired Miles"

And some various snippets from various posts in that thread

• selling Hertz receipt from Jan @ $20.
• still available? looking to reinstate expired AA
• Smooth and easy experience with [email protected]
• 100k+ AA miles reinstated! Thanks to the help from [email protected]!
• Looking for Avis, budget, or Payless receipt from Oct 15, 2018 to April 15, 2019. Willing to pay ~$25!
• I need a receipt from before 11/25/2019 for American Airlines miles.

Nice, huh?