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HI...
I basically bought tickets through a broker on a highly looked upon airlines for 2 totaling $10,000 R/T.
Does anyone have an airline link saying that buying a ticket from someone else's points is not acceptable to an airline, and I risk confiscation of the tickets if this info is found out? I had no idea of the rules.

Thanks!

I can't tell you about your particular "highly looked upon" airline, but as far as American Airlines goes:

At no time may AAdvantage mileage credit or award tickets be purchased, sold or bartered (including but not limited to transferring, gifting, or promising mileage credit or award tickets in exchange for support of a certain business, product, or charity and/or participation in an auction, sweepstakes, raffle, or contest). Any such mileage or tickets are void if transferred for cash or other consideration. Violators (including any passenger who uses a purchased or bartered award ticket) may be liable for damages and litigation costs, including American Airlines attorney's fees incurred in enforcing this rule.

Source

A quick peek at the Asia Miles program:

The sale or barter of mileage credits, Airline Award Travel or other programme benefits is prohibited and will result in the forfeiture of all mileage credits or awards and the cancellation of membership. Violators will be liable for damages suffered or incurred by AML, CPA and/or partners.

Don't know what to tell you except good luck.

Oh, and welcome to FT.

While the exact wording of the regulations no doubt varies from one airline to another, all the frequent flier programs with which I am familiar prohibit selling award tickets. (Using miles to obtain an award ticket for a friend/relative is allowed, as long as no cash changes hands.) Penalties typically include voiding the ticket and cancellation of the mileage account used to obtain the award.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/infor...hey-legit.html

Ok, just a few posts dow is a good discussion of this very issue.

As you've already guessed, you're taking a big risk. Obviously people do this and get away with it regularly, otherwise these brokers would not exist. But there are a number of stories here on FT of people getting caught. If you can get a refund with no or only a small penalty fee, that might be the way to go. It depends on your risk tolerance.

OP already knows about this because he's posted about it before. I'm not sure why he's fishing for answers here because the answer won't change. In his specific situation, he's likely SOL and will be lucky to see his money back. He can then set to buying tickets through a legitimate channel.

Actually, many people don't get away with it. There are simply a lot of suckers out there who pay over huge amounts of money and show up at some airport to find out that their tickets have been rescinded and that they can either buy new ones for full fare or stay home. It's not as though people show up on FT to say, "I'm a fool because I tried to beat the system and lost".

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rob66 (Post 21963914)

Does anyone have an airline link saying that buying a ticket from someone else's points is not acceptable to an airline, and I risk confiscation of the tickets if this info is found out? I had no idea of the rules.

(bolding mine)

Yes, it's in violation of FFP TOS. Every airline that I ever checked all has this rule in their FFP terms. I think "barter" is the key word to search on the airlines websites. Not knowing about the rules doesn't exempt someone from punitive measure.

Buying such tickets means taking risk. When one decides to purchase tix from mileage brokers, risk is in the bundle. When someone doesn't have the stomach for it, just don't do it. If you choose to fly on such tix, pray that you don't get caught. When caught, you have to cough out more money, which can be very high walk-up rate, right on the spot if you intend to complete such journey. Does everyone get caught? Probably not. But the price of getting caught is dearly.

If you want some real-life story, this happened to someone who sold UA miles & got caught:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...ing-miles.html

This is someone who got caught, buying tix from a mileage broker.

Live and learn!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Often1 (Post 21965356)

OP already knows about this because he's posted about it before.

Yes, here's the other thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...et-broker.html

Despite thread title I don't know what sort of "help!" we can render. OP is pretty clearly engaged in risky and against-the-rules behavior. Caveat emptor...

...if engaged in it at all--I looked at a few other threads by OP as well [like Often1 mentions]. OP has 1.2m MR w/ AMEX, an unknown number of WN and UA miles, and can still afford to fork out $10k for tickets. Me smells something amiss here...and if I'm not mistaken there was a reference to SG somewhere, so: see G7 -->> http://www.singaporeair.com/register...form?showTnC=y.

PS: kinda bad 'face' for Robs :(

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rob66 (Post 21963914)

Buying mileage tickets using someone else's points for Cash is against T&C of every airline that I know of. Not sure what recourse you may have against the broker, but the worst that can happen to the buyer is being denied boarding by the Airline and having to cough up a full fare for the ticket.

The seller of the miles in all likelihood will also be investigated by the airline and his/her mileage account will be suspended.