Dec 18, 2019, 12:31 pm
Last edit by: wyogold
Related discussions in other Flyertalk forums:
AA potentially closing accounts due to credit card churning/churn
How to know if you're locked: (as of 12/22/2019)
- Call in to aadvantage reservations (800-882-8880) If you locked, you'll be forwarded to customer service instead of getting to the automated reservations system
- If you want to stay on the line, ask CSR if your account is locked (you tried to make a reservation but it wouldn't let you). CSR will inform you there's a note on your account and that corporate security will contact you
- Try to make a reservation for a super cheap hotel through useaamiles.com. There are 1000 miles / night hotels in New Delhi, so at worst you'll risk 1K miles. If you're locked, you'll see "Unable to process points. Please call our customer service for assistance."
So far, nobody seems to have gotten unlocked and gotten access to their miles back. Accounts with upcoming travel seem to be the ones that are getting terminated at the highest rate.
AA potentially closing accounts due to credit card churning/churn
How to know if you're locked: (as of 12/22/2019)
- Call in to aadvantage reservations (800-882-8880) If you locked, you'll be forwarded to customer service instead of getting to the automated reservations system
- If you want to stay on the line, ask CSR if your account is locked (you tried to make a reservation but it wouldn't let you). CSR will inform you there's a note on your account and that corporate security will contact you
- Try to make a reservation for a super cheap hotel through useaamiles.com. There are 1000 miles / night hotels in New Delhi, so at worst you'll risk 1K miles. If you're locked, you'll see "Unable to process points. Please call our customer service for assistance."
So far, nobody seems to have gotten unlocked and gotten access to their miles back. Accounts with upcoming travel seem to be the ones that are getting terminated at the highest rate.
AA accounts restricted (Nov/Dec 2019)
Dec 23, 2019, 7:06 pm
#976
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,774
I seem to recall that Hilton Honors also closed a number of hilton accounts around that same period of time for abuse of subs and pooling based upon an initial algorithm or review that was very broad. A number of accounts that pooled were closed and then reopened if there was no evidence of card or sub abuse. I’m boarding a flight and cant find the threads at the moment.
Also members who habitually complained thus received compensation points. There was even a thread initiated by an FT member whose and her boyfriend's accounts were closed by Hilton which accused them complained about almost every stay they had. Then they pooled their points to the one who had status.
Dec 23, 2019, 7:07 pm
#977
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: NYC
Posts: 6,438
deleted, not worth arguing. I'll just wait to see how the litigation goes.
Dec 23, 2019, 7:19 pm
#978
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,774
I doubt that this was undertaken without Citi's full participation and agreement. I also continue to believe that a very likely source for all of this would be Citi's own regulators who picked up on multiple extensions of the same credit to the same people (or blenders and toaster ovens living at the same address) and have become concerned about the extensions of credit.
That could cause Citi and AA to act rapidly together and to sort out the mess after the fact, e.g., reviewing accounts and then reinstating, reaching an agreement of some kind, or terminating altogether.
That could cause Citi and AA to act rapidly together and to sort out the mess after the fact, e.g., reviewing accounts and then reinstating, reaching an agreement of some kind, or terminating altogether.
A financial 101 might be helpful.
Besides, have you still no idea for how long the Citi scheme has been going on? It is over 10 years in one form or another, encouraging customers to apply for multiple AAdvantage cards. Even for the current fiasco, the center of the instrument that allows applicants to bypass the 24 and later 48 months interval, the infamous mailer and emailer, started from 2016...
And now Citi and AA "rapidly" move into action to remove the credit extension, after the mailer train going on for 30 months if not more?
It might be a meaningful post of yours, if the background of this is at least understood at the first place...
Last edited by Happy; Dec 23, 2019 at 8:04 pm Reason: correct timeline info
Dec 23, 2019, 7:24 pm
#979
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,774
I would have thought the regulatory issue is too much credit extended to any one individual, rather than how many accounts they have. Doesn't Citi have limits as to how much they'll extend and will move credit lines between accounts to keep aggregate credit under control?
Also, the churners have been insisting they are only opening credit cards in their own names and social security numbers and are otherwise being honest in the credit card application. The issue seems to be how they got offer codes.
Also, the churners have been insisting they are only opening credit cards in their own names and social security numbers and are otherwise being honest in the credit card application. The issue seems to be how they got offer codes.
You could get a liar loan on mortgage etc during the hay days of housing bubble before the financial crisis, but even at that time, a credit card application has to be in a real person's name, ssn, reported income, with the credit history associated with that ssn - that is why ID theft is such a bad thing... esp back then the security measure wasn't as robust as now.
It amazes me that after the financial crisis over 10 years ago, in 2019 there are still some unfathomable misconception how a credit card application is done, and how a financial institution handle credit card approval... Really mind boggling.
Dec 23, 2019, 7:29 pm
#980
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,774
Cannot believe the amount of misconception shown on this thread, when such should be basics to understand personal finance, if not for anything else.
Dec 23, 2019, 7:31 pm
#981
Join Date: Sep 2015
Location: SFO
Posts: 3,888
Except that the offers comes to an individual AA account, not a household/family AA account.
Dec 23, 2019, 7:40 pm
#982
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,774
I don't think reserving a meal would do anything to trigger action, as miles aren't changing hands, so to speak. If the DPs from Reddit (the folks getting canceled tickets AFTER check-in - mentioned a couple of days ago) are true then perhaps the check-in process triggers something and if the account is flagged it cancels the ticket.
.
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Check in is not a trigger. It just coincidence that the cancellation came after check in.
Dec 23, 2019, 7:47 pm
#983
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,774
An active account can turn into locked account or terminated account within hours / days / weeks.
For example, today learned about that a person left the country when his account was active, then he found out his account now is locked while he is still out of the country. His return flight still looks OK, for now. But he is not coming back until next month... What say you?
Dec 23, 2019, 7:52 pm
#984
Join Date: May 2014
Location: SoCal
Posts: 2,164
Ah, used my App which automatically directed me to the ExPlat desk. Had a change of plans, and called to cancel some reservations and have miles redeposited.
PS - after the welcome message, I did receive the usual recordings "prompts" asking the purpose of my call, etc.
PS - after the welcome message, I did receive the usual recordings "prompts" asking the purpose of my call, etc.
I called to check on a new reservation last week that went pending, i received the usual prompts asking about the purpose of the call, talked to AAdvantage, then transferred to ticketing then after many holds i was informed my account is locked and will be contacted by corp security.
if your account is locked you can cancel flights and get them redeposited into your account, try to use miles is the key.
Dec 23, 2019, 7:53 pm
#985
Join Date: May 2012
Location: HNL
Programs: AS MVPG, HA Plat
Posts: 1,268
The Flyertalk credit card boards are largely about taking advantage of American banks' eagerness to spend their marketing budgets sending people on nice trips. We all have different views on how much is too much and when it all becomes exploitive/abusive/fraudulent. Citi had (maybe still has) its internal incentives aligned in such a way that its AA marketing team pushed new applications and signup bonuses far beyond anything that could possibly make sense for the bank as a whole, and people took advantage of that. In between arguing about the morality of it all, this thread is about trying to figure out where AA is drawing the lines and why. Our views on where those lines should be may or may not align with AA's.
Last edited by WrightHI; Dec 23, 2019 at 8:00 pm Reason: Correction: AA, not Citi, in last sentences
Dec 23, 2019, 7:59 pm
#986
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 6,752
While I'm generally not concerned, I'm aware of the potential to be adversely affected, just as with everyone else. For all I know, it could happen at any time and they just haven't gotten around to my account yet. I'm not unprepared and while I wouldn't appreciate having my miles confiscated, it wouldn't really move the needle all that much for me. To hedge, I refunded some mileage flights and replaced them with revenue ones until this thing blows over.
Dec 23, 2019, 8:06 pm
#989
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: IAH
Posts: 418
Your question is unanswerable because -
An active account can turn into locked account or terminated account within hours / days / weeks.
For example, today learned about that a person left the country when his account was active, then he found out his account now is locked while he is still out of the country. His return flight still looks OK, for now. But he is not coming back until next month... What say you?
An active account can turn into locked account or terminated account within hours / days / weeks.
For example, today learned about that a person left the country when his account was active, then he found out his account now is locked while he is still out of the country. His return flight still looks OK, for now. But he is not coming back until next month... What say you?
Dec 23, 2019, 8:11 pm
#990
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,774
The offer comes to an individual person. Another individual person in the same household asks if they can use it instead, truthfully completing the application with their own information. Bank says yes. How is this obviously abusive? The point of it being in the same household isn't that it's the household's AA account, but only that there's a pretty common fact pattern that's more benign than trading/selling offer codes online or setting up phony AA accounts to generate mailers.
The Flyertalk credit card boards are largely about taking advantage of American banks' eagerness to spend their marketing budgets sending people on nice trips. We all have different views on how much is too much and when it all becomes exploitive/abusive/fraudulent. Citi had (maybe still has) its internal incentives aligned in such a way that its AA marketing team pushed new applications and signup bonuses far beyond anything that could possibly make sense for the bank as a whole, and people took advantage of that. In between arguing about the morality of it all, this thread is about trying to figure out where AA is drawing the lines and why. Our views on where those lines should be may or may not align with AA's.
The Flyertalk credit card boards are largely about taking advantage of American banks' eagerness to spend their marketing budgets sending people on nice trips. We all have different views on how much is too much and when it all becomes exploitive/abusive/fraudulent. Citi had (maybe still has) its internal incentives aligned in such a way that its AA marketing team pushed new applications and signup bonuses far beyond anything that could possibly make sense for the bank as a whole, and people took advantage of that. In between arguing about the morality of it all, this thread is about trying to figure out where AA is drawing the lines and why. Our views on where those lines should be may or may not align with AA's.
Or go to post in the parallel (sort of) thread in the AA forum.
From Jon's twitter feed:
"I have so many DMs from folks whose story does -not- sync up with the “they’re all a bunch of cheaters!” narrative. (And, yes, I do believe these folks, since that’s a logical query.) Folks with lifetime status and long AA histories that, again, to....me, really, genuinely just don’t fit the mould in any way. My -assumption- is that they will eventually get warnings and penalties (this is the group I’m describing— not overall per se,) but man I feel bad for some of these members, it’s a very strange situation."
"I have so many DMs from folks whose story does -not- sync up with the “they’re all a bunch of cheaters!” narrative. (And, yes, I do believe these folks, since that’s a logical query.) Folks with lifetime status and long AA histories that, again, to....me, really, genuinely just don’t fit the mould in any way. My -assumption- is that they will eventually get warnings and penalties (this is the group I’m describing— not overall per se,) but man I feel bad for some of these members, it’s a very strange situation."
While I'm generally not concerned, I'm aware of the potential to be adversely affected, just as with everyone else. For all I know, it could happen at any time and they just haven't gotten around to my account yet. I'm not unprepared and while I wouldn't appreciate having my miles confiscated, it wouldn't really move the needle all that much for me. To hedge, I refunded some mileage flights and replaced them with revenue ones until this thing blows over.