Jul 29, 2014, 10:15 am
Last edit by: Prospero
This thread is dedicated to issues around American Airlines Corporate Security, AAdvantage Fraud division (AKA "Revenue Protection Unit"), and its enforcement of the AAdvantage Terms and Conditions - particularly to selling, buying and bartering awards, miles, upgrades and other instruments - and related issues.
It is okay at this time to gift awards, upgrades, etc. as long as there is absolutely no quid pro quo (no buying or selling or offer to do so, no barter or trade "you give me one now I'll give it back" or anything smacking of prohibited activity. AA is probably the strictest of the US airlines about this. They have a very active and expert AAdvantage Fraud division of the AA Corporate Fraud department, and they can both be aggressive and, some might say merciless - clawing back one's miles and instruments, even closing one's account and terminating status and ability to participate in the AAdvantage program n the future.
There are other ways to commit fraud in AA’s eyes, such as fictitious or fraudulent bookings to try to block seats to increase one’s chances if upgrades, generating tickets to access airside facilities (e.g. lounges) when there is no intent to fly, etc.
To read an example of how the US Department of Transportation has rules on punitive actions by AA, read Joel Hayes vs. American Airlines here (PDF).
Please read on for information and the consensus of knowledgeable members.
Also see AAdvantage Program Terms and Conditions and
American Airlines Conditions of Carriage.
The typical email from AA Corporate Security can not be addressed by calling AAdvantage Customer Service or other methods - you must reply to the email address given. It likely will look like this:
Excellent summaries of information (based on the sum of experiences we have seen in this thread over time) of how to respond:
From JonNYC, our resident expert on this:
Older posts have been archived to the
archived thread.
A number of posts regarding AA's confiscation of 60,000 miles from "Mr. Hayes" for allegedly making "fictitious" bookings in search of whether his upgrade would be likely to progress or not, AA IT issues that might have led to this (or not), AA's replies and the USDOT complaint have been moved to a new thread: Hayes, USDOT and AA: "fictitious bookings" and checking upgrades.
NOTE: Posts about members experiencing account security breaches, fraud, theft of awards and instruments have moved to Account fraud / breach: my account compromised, awards stolen, etc..
It is okay at this time to gift awards, upgrades, etc. as long as there is absolutely no quid pro quo (no buying or selling or offer to do so, no barter or trade "you give me one now I'll give it back" or anything smacking of prohibited activity. AA is probably the strictest of the US airlines about this. They have a very active and expert AAdvantage Fraud division of the AA Corporate Fraud department, and they can both be aggressive and, some might say merciless - clawing back one's miles and instruments, even closing one's account and terminating status and ability to participate in the AAdvantage program n the future.
There are other ways to commit fraud in AA’s eyes, such as fictitious or fraudulent bookings to try to block seats to increase one’s chances if upgrades, generating tickets to access airside facilities (e.g. lounges) when there is no intent to fly, etc.
To read an example of how the US Department of Transportation has rules on punitive actions by AA, read Joel Hayes vs. American Airlines here (PDF).
Please read on for information and the consensus of knowledgeable members.
E.g. AAdvantage Terms and Conditions excerpt: "At no time may AAdvantage mileage credit or award tickets be purchased, sold, advertised for sale or bartered (including but not limited to transferring, gifting, or promising mileage credit or award tickets in exchange for support of a certain business, product or charity and/or participation in an auction, sweepstakes, raffle or contest). Any such mileage or tickets are void if transferred for cash or other consideration. Violators (including any passenger who uses a purchased or bartered award ticket) may be liable for damages and litigation costs, including American Airlines attorneys’ fees incurred in enforcing this rule." (This extends to other AA instruments such as Systemwide Upgrades, etc., selling of extra AirPass seats or baggage allowance, etc.)
American Airlines Conditions of Carriage.
<snip>"While you may consider the AAdvantage Miles in your account to be *your* property, they are actually the property of AA, and AA permits you to redeem them within the program rules set by AA. If AA detects any impropriety (real or perceived) in the use of AAdvantage miles, they reserve the right to confiscate the miles and/or close/delete the account."...
My name is Fname Lname, and I am an analyst with American Airlines. One of my responsibilities is investigating possible instances of fraud, misrepresentation, and violations of the General AAdvantage Program Conditions. Today, I’m writing you about your AAdvantage account # XXXXXXXX
We have reason to believe that the transactions listed below violate one or more of the AAdvantage program conditions. This includes, but is not limited to, prohibition of purchase, sale, or barter of mileage credit and or award tickets. As a result, American Airlines has suspended your AAdvantage membership privileges and use of AA.com® in conjunction with your account – and may terminate your account as a result of our findings. We are in the process of completing the investigation into this matter, and I would like to hear the events as they occurred from your perspective. Please respond to this message by <date> with complete and accurate information regarding the activities listed below:
<specific activity /activities in question>
Required Information:·
To protect and retain the integrity of the AAdvantage program, it is vital that firm action be taken as a result of any violation of the AAdvantage Program Conditions, whether intentional or not. Failure to respond completely and accurately by <insert date>, will result in the termination of your AAdvantage membership and all its benefits, including all remaining AAdvantage miles in your account and any award tickets issued from it. Please, understand that our overall motivation is to preserve the benefits of the AAdvantage program, rather than to take punitive action against individuals. To that end, it’s not unusual for us to release the AAdvantage account suspension once we receive all the detail we request and reconcile it with the results of our investigation. We hope to hear from you soon.
Regards,
Fname Lname, etc.
We have reason to believe that the transactions listed below violate one or more of the AAdvantage program conditions. This includes, but is not limited to, prohibition of purchase, sale, or barter of mileage credit and or award tickets. As a result, American Airlines has suspended your AAdvantage membership privileges and use of AA.com® in conjunction with your account – and may terminate your account as a result of our findings. We are in the process of completing the investigation into this matter, and I would like to hear the events as they occurred from your perspective. Please respond to this message by <date> with complete and accurate information regarding the activities listed below:
<specific activity /activities in question>
Required Information:·
- Passenger name·
- Origin and destination cities on the travel itinerary·
- Purchaser name (individual, company and/or website), including:·
- Copy of any advertisements to which you responded offering to purchase/broker the use of your AAdvantage miles·
- Purchaser contact information, such as:·
- Mailing address·
- Email address·
- Telephone number·
- Website profile name·
- Your statement fully disclosing the details surrounding the sale/barter transaction referenced above·
- Copy of all communication between yourself and the purchaser·
- Documentation that you received payment
- Copy of all communication between yourself and the purchaser·
- Your statement fully disclosing the details surrounding the sale/barter transaction referenced above·
- Website profile name·
- Telephone number·
- Email address·
- Mailing address·
- Purchaser contact information, such as:·
- Copy of any advertisements to which you responded offering to purchase/broker the use of your AAdvantage miles·
- Purchaser name (individual, company and/or website), including:·
- Origin and destination cities on the travel itinerary·
To protect and retain the integrity of the AAdvantage program, it is vital that firm action be taken as a result of any violation of the AAdvantage Program Conditions, whether intentional or not. Failure to respond completely and accurately by <insert date>, will result in the termination of your AAdvantage membership and all its benefits, including all remaining AAdvantage miles in your account and any award tickets issued from it. Please, understand that our overall motivation is to preserve the benefits of the AAdvantage program, rather than to take punitive action against individuals. To that end, it’s not unusual for us to release the AAdvantage account suspension once we receive all the detail we request and reconcile it with the results of our investigation. We hope to hear from you soon.
Regards,
Fname Lname, etc.
Blogger Gary Leff: "If you made that mistake and got caught, American usually will go light on first-time offenders provided that they ‘come clean’ and are forthcoming about whom a systemwide was sold to or purchased from and what the terms were. They are most interested in serial brokers and are willing to ‘plea bargain’ with minor offenders to get the Evip-lords. There may be a consequence but it should fall short of account shutdown and forfeiture of miles." Link
I am going to try and provide a summary of the advice. For the record, this is 90% from Jon (JonNYC) and a little bit from other comments and circumstances, I am just trying to provide an easy summary, without all the explanations and reasons. I am happy to have others update/correct.
1. Respond to the questions in the email which you received. Don't try to call or email that person, or anyone else, at AA or DOT or whatever. Just answer the email.
2. Answer every question, in detail, with the facts. Don't use sarcasm or "you should know" or anything else that sounds like to you are avoiding the exact question being asked.
3. Assume that they know more about the true facts than you do. It might not always be true, but in most cases they have way more information than you might assume. So go back to #2, above.
4. If you did ANYTHING that was wrong (not under your interpretation of what you think the rules should be, but based on what the rules actually say) then, if you want to continue to participate in the AAdvantage program, tell them about your error and tell them that you are prepared to pay a correct penalty for your mistake (miles/status/etc) and then go back to #2, above.
1. Respond to the questions in the email which you received. Don't try to call or email that person, or anyone else, at AA or DOT or whatever. Just answer the email.
2. Answer every question, in detail, with the facts. Don't use sarcasm or "you should know" or anything else that sounds like to you are avoiding the exact question being asked.
3. Assume that they know more about the true facts than you do. It might not always be true, but in most cases they have way more information than you might assume. So go back to #2, above.
4. If you did ANYTHING that was wrong (not under your interpretation of what you think the rules should be, but based on what the rules actually say) then, if you want to continue to participate in the AAdvantage program, tell them about your error and tell them that you are prepared to pay a correct penalty for your mistake (miles/status/etc) and then go back to #2, above.
Perfect and 100%.
<snip>
The analysts that do this for a living have the same reactions that any humans do to being lied to and/or condescended to. Therefore, as well as being 100% truthful, go out of your way NOT to be:
-condescending
-brusque
-sharp, terse and/or sounding like you're being inconvenienced
-insulting
-just generally slippery, aloof, evasive and unforthcoming. As mentioned; they know more than you think they do. Always.
DO be apologetic, contrite and extremely cooperative.
Finally, any version of "...in which case, I'll be emailing [insert name or department here] to tell them how I, a [insert years flying AA, status, MMer, $$ spent, etc] customer is being treated" and/or mention of your lawyer, DOT, Chris Elliot (
), this forum, any blogger, etc. DO NOT DO THIS.
<snip>
The analysts that do this for a living have the same reactions that any humans do to being lied to and/or condescended to. Therefore, as well as being 100% truthful, go out of your way NOT to be:
-condescending
-brusque
-sharp, terse and/or sounding like you're being inconvenienced
-insulting
-just generally slippery, aloof, evasive and unforthcoming. As mentioned; they know more than you think they do. Always.
DO be apologetic, contrite and extremely cooperative.
Finally, any version of "...in which case, I'll be emailing [insert name or department here] to tell them how I, a [insert years flying AA, status, MMer, $$ spent, etc] customer is being treated" and/or mention of your lawyer, DOT, Chris Elliot (
), this forum, any blogger, etc. DO NOT DO THIS.archived thread.
A number of posts regarding AA's confiscation of 60,000 miles from "Mr. Hayes" for allegedly making "fictitious" bookings in search of whether his upgrade would be likely to progress or not, AA IT issues that might have led to this (or not), AA's replies and the USDOT complaint have been moved to a new thread: Hayes, USDOT and AA: "fictitious bookings" and checking upgrades.
NOTE: Posts about members experiencing account security breaches, fraud, theft of awards and instruments have moved to Account fraud / breach: my account compromised, awards stolen, etc..
Account audit / blocked / fraud: award / miles / SWU / sale, barter, etc.
Mar 14, 2019, 12:10 pm
#782
Join Date: Feb 2010
Posts: 289
I was a victim of fraud back in December '18. I was able to phone AAdvantage before the passenger flew and her ticket was cancelled. I was told that "Security" would be in touch within a few days. Three months later and I've not heard a peep out of AA and my miles are still missing. Have called AAdvantage customer service 5 times but each time they tell me I need to just wait. Any suggestions for expediting this?
Mar 14, 2019, 12:26 pm
#783
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Dallas
Programs: AA Executive Platinum
Posts: 591
I was a victim of fraud back in December '18. I was able to phone AAdvantage before the passenger flew and her ticket was cancelled. I was told that "Security" would be in touch within a few days. Three months later and I've not heard a peep out of AA and my miles are still missing. Have called AAdvantage customer service 5 times but each time they tell me I need to just wait. Any suggestions for expediting this?
Mar 14, 2019, 4:50 pm
#784
Join Date: Aug 2004
Programs: AA (EP), Hilton (Diamond), Marriott Bonvoy (Titanium)
Posts: 8,937
I was a victim of fraud back in December '18. I was able to phone AAdvantage before the passenger flew and her ticket was cancelled. I was told that "Security" would be in touch within a few days. Three months later and I've not heard a peep out of AA and my miles are still missing. Have called AAdvantage customer service 5 times but each time they tell me I need to just wait. Any suggestions for expediting this?
Mar 14, 2019, 7:35 pm
#785
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Global
Posts: 5,998
I assume you mean that in December someone used your AAdvantage account to issue an award ticket using your miles. You luckily noticed before the flight date, called and the award ticket was cancelled. I assume you also changed your password at that time. When the award ticket was cancelled, were the miles redeposited to your account? Was your AAdvantage account locked? Can you still log in and do things (see your miles, start booking an award trip, etc.)?
OP did you specifically ask for the miles to be put back in your account?
Assuming the account was never suspended, never blocked, etc., I would think this would be like canceling any other award ticket. "Please cancel my award and put the miles back in my account and please note I did not authorize this ticket."
Mar 14, 2019, 7:40 pm
#786
Suspended
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: FIND ME ON TWITTER FOR THE LATEST
Posts: 27,730
I assume you mean that in December someone used your AAdvantage account to issue an award ticket using your miles. You luckily noticed before the flight date, called and the award ticket was cancelled. I assume you also changed your password at that time. When the award ticket was cancelled, were the miles redeposited to your account? Was your AAdvantage account locked? Can you still log in and do things (see your miles, start booking an award trip, etc.)?
Great point - you have to specifically request the miles get put back into your account.
OP did you specifically ask for the miles to be put back in your account?
Assuming the account was never suspended, never blocked, etc., I would think this would be like canceling any other award ticket. "Please cancel my award and put the miles back in my account and please note I did not authorize this ticket."
OP did you specifically ask for the miles to be put back in your account?
Assuming the account was never suspended, never blocked, etc., I would think this would be like canceling any other award ticket. "Please cancel my award and put the miles back in my account and please note I did not authorize this ticket."
Would seem unlikely/more complicated than that in light of:
Mar 14, 2019, 8:15 pm
#787
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Global
Posts: 5,998
Fair point, but that assumes Customer Service is aware security is doing a review.
Is that the case... AA Cust Service knows an account is under security review?
(It seemed more like a canned response when they don't know what is going on... aka OP told CS there was a security review going on... not CS saying (unprompted) there is a security review going on.)
Is that the case... AA Cust Service knows an account is under security review?
(It seemed more like a canned response when they don't know what is going on... aka OP told CS there was a security review going on... not CS saying (unprompted) there is a security review going on.)
Mar 14, 2019, 10:50 pm
#789
Original Member
Join Date: May 1998
Location: Orange County, CA, USA
Programs: AA (Life Plat), Marriott (Life Titanium) and every other US program
Posts: 6,411
@rrapynot, I'll PM and tell ya what to do
Mar 15, 2019, 6:30 am
#790
Suspended
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: FIND ME ON TWITTER FOR THE LATEST
Posts: 27,730
I am going to go on a limb (a little speculation doesn't hurt) and say "maybe AA Security was suspicious about the circumstances." I am not impugning the integrity of the poster, because I don't know what happened here. But this type of delay might happen if the cancelled ticket was issued using a hypothetical poster's password and a hypothetical poster's IP address. How? A relative, a former dating partner, etc. It might have been totally unauthorized, but it the password and the IP address match (because the thief had access to the poster's computer) then there could be concern by AA security. Just one possible scenario.
In this case however, due to the timing, I tend to think might be a simple "lost in the system" kinda thing-- as odd as that sounds.
But your scenario is a definite problem as well.
Mar 15, 2019, 7:14 am
#792
Join Date: Aug 2004
Programs: AA (EP), Hilton (Diamond), Marriott Bonvoy (Titanium)
Posts: 8,937
I wasn't suggesting it was as simple as the OP not asking for the miles to be restated. I was just asking for clarification to better understand the situation. That's why I didn't speculate as to what happened, instead asking When the award ticket was cancelled, were the miles redeposited to your account? Was your AAdvantage account locked? Can you still log in and do things (see your miles, start booking an award trip, etc.)?
Mar 15, 2019, 8:36 am
#795
Original Member
Join Date: May 1998
Location: Orange County, CA, USA
Programs: AA (Life Plat), Marriott (Life Titanium) and every other US program
Posts: 6,411
I can't tell if this is intentionally bad advice or just a lack of understanding of the likely situation. But, for the record, this would not be consistent with the advice given in this thread over that last 10+ years.
P.S. - Based on Post #20 in the "No compensation for Mechanical Delay" thread I now have a clearer opinion. (I am lousy at linking - sorry.)
P.S. - Based on Post #20 in the "No compensation for Mechanical Delay" thread I now have a clearer opinion. (I am lousy at linking - sorry.)
Last edited by sbrower; Mar 15, 2019 at 8:44 am Reason: Added PS