Matthew_DC

If this has been covered elsewhere, apologies. I haven't seen it after a quick look through the board.

My neighbor booked an award ticket for me at the delta website, DPS>NRT in Garuda C, 45,000 skymiles. I gave him my CC to pay for the taxes. I had transferred 6000 miles to his account from my account before the transaction. The reservation went through and a confirmation email arrived.

Today I phoned Delta to get the Garuda confirmation code and was told by a surly agent that the award was cancelled due to unauthorized activity on the account (my neighbor never uses this account anymore) and it cannot be booked with skymiles, only cash. I contacted my neighbor and he is now locked out of his account. There is still availability, so he can call Delta to recover his account, I hope, but the agent said even if you try to book it again, the award will be cancelled.

Question: Has anyone seen something like this before and what's the way to handle it? If an award ticket is available on the website, and for the same price (45,000 miles), is it actually not available and Delta doesn't want to sell the ticket for that price? Or is it that you can't book an award for anyone except yourself when you have a skymiles account?

Thanks for any feedback.

PS: The award still shows as "confirmed" at the Delta website.

sydneyracquelle

I can use my SM to book award flights for any person I want. DL only cares if I try to sell the ticket or my miles.

Marylou

So a ticket was booked from Skymiles account A for Pax B with miles transferred into A’s account from B, taxes being paid from a credit card not belonging to A and the bots triggered a whoa. I’m sure this is all on the up and up but I can see where this could be a problem, especially on this ITN.

Check your credit card and see if the charge was posted.

Matthew_DC

He's going through the account recovery process now. No problem if is an automated security measure and it's possible to resolve. The agent's handling of the matter was more like Spirit Airlines than what I would have expected from Delta, though maybe my expectations are unreasonably high.

Let's see what they do next.

flyerCO

Until DL security releases his account he can't book anything. If they do release it, then he can book anything he wishes.

Note normally DL security doesn't just lock an account and cancel awards without some solid grounds. As long as you didn't pay him for his miles you're ok. However if you did, then they're correct.

Note that in nearly 100% of these cases we hear, across all airlines, there's a legit reason. Some are understandable not knowing the violated rules. Ie such as donating to charity who then auctions an award off, neighbor telling them you paid for the award when meaning you paid the taxes/fees, etc.. Some are very clear cut violations. Ie selling awards online, etc.. Most posters just assume some info is missing. (On purpose or accidentally, but withheld/ missing nonetheless)

Matthew_DC

Thanks. Appreciate the comments. This actually is 100% legit. He stopped flying Delta a long time ago and mentioned the miles, but he didn't have enough for this award, nor do I, because I never fly Delta anymore. He isn't interested in air miles travel and doesn't care about the miles. I did take him and his wife for a Chinese meal to say thanks 8 months ago. I hope they aren't counting that as purchasing miles from him. That's the only quid pro quo here, and he didn't even ask for it. LOL.

MSPeconomist

Could the long period of inactivity cause DL to suspect that the account could be compromised?

AFAIK it's OK to pay taxes and fees on an award ticket with the passenger's credit card rather than the account owner's credit card.

hotturnip

I probably wouldn't have tried to use my own credit card for the taxes. I'd have let the friend pay, and give him a check. I suspect it's the combination of all the oddities (old, stale account; recent miles transfer; ticket in another name; credit card from pax and not booking party) that caused this to crash.

JTE458

Wouldn't it have been easier for him to transfer all of his miles to you?

Zorak

Hindsight is 20/20. Obv if OP knew what was going to happen they might have done things differently, starting with using the account holder's CC as advised above. But anyway, there is a cost per mile transferred, so disregarding other concerns it's cheaper to transfer in the direction that results in fewer miles changing hands.

JTE458

Really? Did not know there was a fee. Makes sense then as this issue would not have been expected.

Zorak

Yep:

https://www.delta.com/content/www/en...iles-faqs.html

I'm glad only applicable taxes apply and not any inapplicable taxes

gooselee

I'm assuming/hoping that once DL has verified and understood the situation, they'll be able to reinstate the award ticket with no issues. As others have said, although this is a legitimate booking, there were several red flags that understandably caused an automated system to raise an alarm.

What I find more concerning is that DL did not reach out to either OP or his neighbor to proactively alert them of suspected fraud and the cancelled booking. From OP's account, it sounds like if he had never called in for the Garuda PNR, he would have arrived at the airport and been surprised by the cancelled booking at that point. I would've thought that the regular SOP for something like this is to contact the account owner pretty quickly - even if the booking is automatically cancelled I'd like to know that my account has been locked and a suspected target of fraud.

OP, please let us know how it works out!

jwhuffman

Delta has Award purchase restrictions if within 72hrs and other possible restrictions from the following locations due to high award fraud:
Africa

• Brazil
• China
• Indonesia
• Israel
• Russia
• Singapore
• Vietnam

flyerCO

If this was they suspected fraud, they likely would do as you state. However it appears they think OP neighbor was selling/otherwise violating terms.