richarddd

According to a poster on DoctorOfCredit, to determine if there are issues with your account: Call AA from a phone number linked to your AAdvantage account (or enter your number if calling from another phone, I believe). If you immediately get the message that you’re being transferred to a human CSR, you’re locked – and can hang up before the call transfers.

OssianBlue

It appears that all pax were locked prior to check in.

Edit: Note that there is no communication from AA that an account is locked or under investigation.

OssianBlue

No longer relevant.

Robl

Cancelled a personal card today. Up front Citi CSR knew nothing about AA account freezes. Just went ahead an cancelled giving the freeze as the reason.

metallo

I'm not personally affected by this issue (have never been a "churner"), but in reading this thread, I'm very concerned about the way AA seems to think it is appropriate to do business.

If you have a problem with a customer (or class of customers), give them fair warning that you think a practice is outside the lines. Some of them will go away, some will continue (and then it seems more fair to take action), and some will cease the practice and otherwise be good ongoing customers.

Anyone in corporate security at AA has likely known about the churning practices of certain members for quite some time. Why not simply reach out and let them know they'll be terminated/locked if it continues? Furthermore, I think the point about Citi receiving annual fees and other benefits as a result of the extra sign-ups is an interesting one. If all this happened as has been reported thus far, AA and Citi don't exactly seem totally innocent here.

Don't simply terminate/lock accounts, leave people in limbo, and even go as far as to cancel tickets after check-in. As shady as the practices of some of the churners might be, I would expect a large corporation (that is expected to serve the public interest in many ways -- and receives government subsidies/tax breaks/exemptions as a result) to take the higher road. Instead, AA seems to be attempting to be as punitive and retaliatory as possible. This is very odd corporate behavior.

We will undoubtedly be hearing about these cases for quite some time going forward.

joe_miami

I don’t know the T&Cs of the pudding deal, which, if I recall, was a long time ago. Even if the T&Cs of the AA/Citi situation didn’t explicitly forbid getting 27 AA cards, I see it as a common-sense thing. I get three mailers every week from Discover. I’d bet 98 people out of 100 would interpret that as Discover wanting me to apply for one card, not one card for each mailer. I’d further bet that most people might believe two or three Discover cards might be reasonable (separating expenses, back-up card, whatever) but anything beyond that would be a clear pushing of the envelope that invites attention.

The bonuses are plainly advertised as “welcome” bonuses. By one’s third card, to what would one be welcomed? Nobody could possibly believe that Citi or AA makes money from people opening a card, spending the bare minimum to get the bonus, and then moving on to the next card.

joe_miami

I agree with much of this in principle, but despite the sob stories being posted here and elsewhere, AA seems to be doing an excellent job with its targeting. Random AA passengers with one or two CCs aren’t suddenly being shut down and/or stranded. A high percentage of them literally have spent $0 with AA.

Robl

So 3 Discover cards is reasonable but 4 would allow Discover to seize your cash back or points despite it not being in the T&C?

joe_miami

Given that it wouldn’t even occur to 98 people out of 100 that they could, let alone should, apply for Card #2 , yes, under the general “abuse” terms.

There’s not a jury in the world that’s going to believe people were entitled to a fourth or tenth or fiftieth welcome bonus.

fredc84

So, is AA going to reimburse Citi for all these miles that Citi paid for in the first place?

sethMCOflyer

But I bet Discover would only approve you for so many separate cards. When applying for your third card they may not approve you and say hold up, this doesn't make sense.

In Citi's case they knew exactly what they were doing. You'd call in to verify your information on the application (income or phone number) and they'd say "I see you have 15 other AA Platinum Cards, you must be very familiar with the benefits already. Let me get your application processed .... Congrats on your new card."

So if we're using the common sense approach, Citi certainly had none of it. Also AA had sponsored articles back in the Exec Card days that encouraged getting multiple of the same card. It seems like both of them were totally fine with the practice until a month ago.

Visconti

Right.

What would a reasonable person think upon receiving a welcome bonus offer for a card in which he already has and earned the bonus? He'd assume it's just marketing mass mail and shred it. What kind of person would think, "oh, they want me to get another one and earn another bonus!" Wow, lucky me!

joe_miami

There’s definitely something odd on the Citi side, but that doesn’t mean AA has to tolerate it. There’s no way AA Corp Sec went rogue here.

OssianBlue

Citi affiliated bloggers promoted pets and plants mailers at public events.

OssianBlue

So you are arguing that we are to be held to some amorphous standard of reasonable while AA is allowed to exert its rights to the maximum extent of the law? That's untenable.