bertie_jeeves

Are elites being impacted or just non elites?

sethMCOflyer

It seems like anyone with multiple sign up bonuses in the past 24 months.

freeflyin

Is there a way to redeem for gift cards without going through Points.com? I can't log in to Points and I am waiting for them to respond to my request

wiivile

i would recommend against redeeming miles thru points.com, not only because it is a bad value, but because it will raise AA's ire even more. i would just wait it out.

gmt4

I think its narrower than that. There are not enough data points to say what the cause is across the board...if its frequencies i.e. a card every 33 days (2/65) on a single account, high frequency against across multiple accounts belonging to the same person i.e. someone has five accounts and is going with a card every 33 days...so essentially 5 cards a month, or only AA activity was SUBs and redemptions, or it was other violations that started the tidal wave. I understand why people don't want to put all their details out there. There's probably much more info in the private subreddits.

bertie_jeeves

Interesting. Means some sort of investigation is ongoing. If it was just non-rev pax it is one thing. Doubt they will shut down future revenue stream.

sethMCOflyer

There’s only one datapoint of someone putting signup bonuses into different accounts and it didn’t even make sense. It seemed like they didn’t realize they could combine their accounts and not some loophole. You can only get one Citi card per SSN per 33 days.

There are AA status holders that are in the shutdown protocol.

Put another way, there are people who used physical mailers to sign up for cards while also flying on normal revenue AA tickets and holding status who are in the same boat with everyone else.

The only question I have is if they limited it to multiple of the same card in the past 24 months or are they including anyone who has signed up for multiple AA cards. Someone could have signed up for four AA cards and gotten four bonuses in about three months without playing any games.

LondonElite

wiivile

I tend to agree with you - churning the United card isn't possible because its issuer (Chase) is competent in preventing multiple bonuses both due to 5/24 and frequency restrictions. AMEX has 'once in a lifetime' rules for all its Delta cards.

What pisses me off more than anything about this - more than the potential loss of the actual miles - is that I am fed up with corporations blaming customers for taking advantage of their own failures, in this case, Citi's inability like every other bank to place effective frequency restrictions on earning signup bonuses. Not only did they not have a frequency rule for these offers (NONE of the mailers had 24 or 48 month language), but their credit analysts knowingly approved people seeing credit reports with 5, 10, 15+ of the same card, and approved people regardless of who applied vs who was targeted. When there are loopholes or offers that are 'too good', some people are going to take advantage of it, period. It doesn't help that they have cultivated an antagonistic relationship with their customers to begin with (airlines and banks are notoriously unpopular outside of forums like this), so people aren't going to feel remorse about taking advantage of loopholes against these companies.

NYCroots

If anyone has been accepted into the private reddit group yet (I'm still waiting), could you let us know if there's been any updates from people who have had flights either today, or tried to check in for flights tomorrow? I have one early next week and have no idea if I should start booking other arrangements.

I've seen a few blogs mention that reservations of locked/shut down accounts have been cancelled, but I haven't seen a single DP of this.

churnandburn42

Has anyone potentially at risk tried transferring miles out/cashing out as a last ditch effort? I don't even know the details of that but the thought crossed my mind instead of just waiting to be nabbed...

EDIT: Seems like you can't transfer to any other programs, but you can theoretically cash out a max of 150k in gift cards. Haven't done it myself though.

mhdena

A person with a scheduled flight today got a cancelation email.

NRamos0330

Do you know if this person's account was locked down?

Often1

People focus too much on the specific and forget that AA is typically aggressive about fraud in general and apparently devotes substantial resources to anti-fraud efforts.

Not just this scam, but people selling miles, certificates, booking impossible tickets, booking refundable tickets and cancelling to create inventory. All of these point to sophisticated efforts by AA and it should come as no surprise that it enforces the rules.

gumercindo

Yikes, biggest fear comes true!