GeorgeZZZ

Allowing users to trade the points will actually benefit the airlines. If not allowing to trade, someone will never use their points to buy tickets. If allowing to trade someone will use the points to buy tickets eventually. To the airlines, it does not matter who buy the tickets. what does matter is that someone will buy the tickets from the airlines because they have the miles.

CDKing

Aren't they better off by not letting you use your miles and just letting them sit on the books or expire from non-use? Airlines are also making some good money with their buy/gift miles revenue stream.

GeorgeZZZ

I think they are not comparing to that someone buy tickets from them with these miles. If not for using the miles, people might buy the tickets from other airlines. It will be better off for the airlines to gain customers.

CDKing

Its not like they are flying around with a lot of extra empty seats.

GeorgeZZZ

If that is the case, why did the airlines offer the miles in the beginning at all?

CDKing

To reward you for your loyalty, not to give away points your friends and family. If you only have a few thousand miles you aren't who they are trying to reward. If they weren't making so much money selling points to the banks they would likely stop offering them all together. Heck they are already doing that by making it harder to earn miles and jacking up the award chart so you cannot afford to use them or you spend more and more to earn them. If they really wanted you to use them they would lower the number of miles needed and open up more award space. The opposite is happening

GeorgeZZZ

How about hotel points and credit card points? Are they more tradable than airline miles?

CDKing

All programs prohibit buying, selling and bartering/trading.

Credit card programs such as AMEX Membership Rewards and Chase Ultimate Rewards allow you to transfer into someone else's airline or hotel account but the same applies if they find out its anything other than a gift you can have your account shut down and points taken away

JDiver

Not even close, IMO. The airlines would probably be positively ecstatic if we forgot about our miles and let them expire, rather than use them. They issue the "currency" and much like the world's postal services who sell stamps to collectors, they're happy if they go unused.

Today, they are releasing fewer award seats (particularly at lowest redemption levels) because they have steadily reduced capacity on their flights as they've downsized aircraft and honed their yield / revenue management software algorithms as well.

For now, I can gift travel with my miles, or stays with my hotel points, or use them myself. That's legitimate and well within the purview of what is allowed. And with current tax laws, nobody gets taxed.

Sell those miles, you've got (probably undeclared) income. <Ding! Ding!> Now there are potential tax implications as well as Terms and Conditions violations. (Win those miles in a contest and there are tax implications, by the way. Earn them, no tax issues; win or sell them, that's no longer true.)

lwildernorva

To tack onto this, it's helpful to understand that FF programs for domestic US airlines arose in the newly-deregulated era of the early 1980s. As difficult as it might be to believe, there were plenty of planes that operated with enough empty seats to create a very competitive atmosphere for customers. FF programs were one of the results.

By 2000, it might have been expected that the shift we're seeing in a lot of airline programs might have already occurred, but 9/11 changed that and then the worldwide economic issues beginning in 2007-08 kept the competition engine going, with airlines and CC companies offering increasing bonuses.

Although economic recovery has been slow, it has occurred. In addition, airline consolidation has slowly allowed airlines to substitute smaller planes and less frequent service to many cities outside of the major markets, further reducing the imbalance between the number of seats flown and the number of passengers carried so that it is highly unusual for a plane to be flown at anything less than 95% capacity.

Believe me, the airlines would be perfectly happy if all of us forgot about the miles we hold and just paid full fare for tickets. Of course, we won't, but airlines aren't going out of their way to make redemptions easier even as they continue lucrative agreements with financial institutions to make earning those miles easier.

JDiver

Excellent points, IMO!

During the regulation period, airlines pretty much charged the same ("regulation"), which made for high prices (compared to today's) and airlines sought to differentiate themselves by lavish meals - I well remember "Champagne flights", "English hunt breakfasts", the carvery roast beef cart, etc. More comfortable seats (for that era - today's flat sleeper seats far exceded First class seats of the 1950s and even 1980s), even early FAs that were RNs (a gimmick to reassure early passengers they'd be safe), etc. AA even created the Admirals Club (originally Flagship Club as the Navy and others didn't want the idea this was for Navy Admirals to drink alcohol) for prominent, connected flyers (legislators and industrial CIPs who could influence them), though by 1967 it went to paid membership (some say the Cuvil Rights Act of 1964 had something to do with that, as it did with eliminating age, marital and weight restrictions in favor of using BFOQS - Bona Fide Occupational Qualifications.

In 1978, deregulation became law. "Holy cow, what are we going to do now?"

Deregulation brought market conditions, and given the ultimate fate of many of those airlines that thrived during regulation (Pan Am was the U.S.' "chosen instrument" for a time, much good did it do them in the long haul), and some of the post-deregulation attempts went down the tubes as well (AA's "More Room Throughout Coach" was a failure because people didn't care about more seat pitch, they wanted lower prices).

Not very long after, airlines sought other ways to keep us "loyal". "Affinity" or "loyalty" programs were created to keep us flying one airline, at least until the airlines devised alliances. Then they resorted to cartelization with Joint Business Ventures that came with anti-trust immunity. They're still there, and selling miles wholesale to credit card companies et al is big money they've become as addicted to as we have to the miles. (But the brass ring keeps getting moved farther away and the merry-go-round goes ever faster...)

I feel privileged to have experienced it all, from the 1940s DC-3s through the big four engine growlers to early jets (BAC 111, Comets, you name it) through today. It was a premium experience (at premium prices), took 2-3 times longer, premium seats were risible in today's terms, overheads took a gentleman's hat, possibly a small briefcase, or a woman's (small) hat box.

And here we are on FT, working hard to crack the system to benefit from it and to keep educated about the changes...and it seems so easy to trade miles and points until they hoist us. The airlines and hotel chains, with their revenue protection units, and the number of unscrupulous coyotes who meld among the "reputable" brokers and sheep to fleece the vulnerable and gullible.

How good and avid are the RPUs? Well, for one, AA Corporate Security - AAdvantage Fraud are very good. Read

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...solidated.html

And older posts in the lengthy archived daughter thread, http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...tc-consol.html.

ripplebunny

Hello,

I've heard that you are able to convert points or miles to cash? Is that possible? I've searched, and the only results that came out were gift cards. Would they be talking about cash back instead?

Thanks for the help.

JDiver

Welcome to FlyerTalk.

There are sites and brokers that offer to do that, but they violate every airline's or hotel chain's terms of conditions that prohibit barter, trade, exchange, purchase or sales of their instruments, including miles or points.

The airlines actively seek people who do that; sellers can lose all their miles, their status and have their account closed. Buyers may be denied travel or lodging without compensation.

It's most likely not a violation of law but in essence, providers consider the points or miles to be theirs, and that any "quid pro quo" use is essentially fraud and in violation of the terms and conditions people agree to (knowingly or not) when they begin to accumulate points or miles.

Efrem

Depending on the program, you may be able to use your points to buy things you would have bought anyhow or to pay off some of your credit card bill. Amounts to the same thing.

The value you get for your miles/points that way tends to be low, usually about 1¢ for a typical airline mile. If you travel much, you can get higher value by using them for plane tickets. (The airline would rather you get the tickets, since they can usually give you a seat that would otherwise have been empty, whereas they have to give an outside company real cash. Offering better value in tickets is one way they encourage you in that direction.) That's why most of us here don't value the merchandise options. They can still make sense for the right person, but that person is probably better served with a cash-back card rather than an airline miles card.

lucasmccamy6

So I have 94,000 delta sky miles, 102,000 marriot points, 39,000 aadvantage miles, and 41,000 chase ultimate rewards. Is there a way i can convert them into one account to redeem for a 250,000 mile thing? Im trying to fly first class from USA to Thailand. Any help?