Negative account balance [merged repayment of SEN overdraft thread]
 

HI!

I was wondering if Lufthansa is screwing with me. I have an negative balance of 52600 miles, meaning that I made som overdraft before the new rules got in power. Now i got a letter that says that I have to pay for the miles despite touching the account since 2004. Now, do you think that Lufthansa has the right to charge my credit card. They can't just change the rules and then say that I have to pay.

What do you think?

could it be that you didnot requalify for sen? because then they may bill you for the overdraft. imho they just cut the overdraft balance from 100000 miles to 50000 miles. in any case you are to be charged when you are no longer a SEN or HON

There was nothing stated in the old rules that if I dont pay back the miles I will be charged. That's the new rules. I did not agree and that's why I think that I am legally right?

I don't know. The word overdraft seems to imply a duty to pay back. This is what LH will argue. Instead of trying to get into a legal fight with LH, why don't you just credit your account with the 52k miles? As an ex-SEN, this shouldn't be a big deal for you.

SmilingBoy.

Well, not a big deal but Lufthansa changed the old rules so it would be difficult for me to fly back those miles. W class 50%. That was not the deal I had before making the overdraft.

Not trying to ruin your day, but LH will probably argue the following

- it is called an OVERDRFAT which means you will have to pay back sometime
- they gave you three years to do so but you had no activity in that time
- you got something for these miles (Award ticket, merchandise)
- even without a change in the rules you would have been responsible for 'paying back' which you obviously did not care about at all so far (no activity in the account for three years according to your post
- it probably said something in the rules back then that the OVERDRAFT needs to be filled back up sometime

So I guess if it goes bad for you, you will not have too great of a chance of getting away with it :(

Let us know how it worked out....

OK, so now I'm curious:

How did LH argue in the 1000s of cases of (often fake) SEN accounts of Mileage Brokers that were created with Airrail runs, just to be charged with 100k+140k miles in order to sell irregular tickets?

And how did LH argue in the countless cases of U.K. status matchers who immediately deducted 140k miles from their empty SEN accounts for a nice trip in LH F, raided the SEN lounges for 2 years, complained on FT about the terrible "Luftwaffe" treatment and never credited one single *A ticket to their comped accounts?

Gee, there must be thousands of trials. Or maybe not. ;)

Don't get me wrong: I don't endorse taking a credit (money, miles or simply borrowing stuff) without intending to ever pay it back. I think is a pathetic and displays a basic lack of character. I don't trust such people and am not at interested in dealing with them. However, this doesn't change my believe that LH won't escalate the matter beyond writing a letter.

Why is LH "srewing" you since it was you not repaying your loan. The cash value of a mile as sold by LH to consumers kept the same during the last years so you knew what you were doing when taking this loan. Your expectation that future flights would buy you more miles was not met.

This is what came to my mind: You took a loan in EUR (miles) and spend the EUR (miles) for flights. You expect to repay the loan with money earnd in the US (by future flights). However, the exchange rate (earning ratio) changes and you cannot repay. Certainly your bank (LH) will request the EUR (miles) back. You are screwed, but certainly not by your bank (LH) but by your decision to take that loan (A serious problem I currently encounter with some investments in shipping hedged in USD).

Well, two or three years before M&M enhanced the overdraft, I actually called them and asked what happend to those customers who used it but never ever paid it back. I was quite curious about this scenario, because I was doing research for my story about mileage ticket brokers and award miles junkies (similar but way more in-depth than this week's tiny little FOCUS item). Their answer was: "Nothing." Yep, I called different people several times.

Then came the wave of status matched SENs and Airrail SENs (all of them happily using the overdraft, then conveniently forgetting about the account), and LH enhanced the overdraft.

interesting. I hope they take it more seriously now. Would be nothing but fair to people paying with miles earnt and/or paying back such loans.

Certainly.
Then again, LH isn't really famous for being fair. ;)

if you are a lawyer than please also talk as one. i don't now think anything of what you say is from any position of law.

I am not certain what you want to express with this sentence. Your language is not clear at all. However, from a legal point of view it is simple:

• Making use of an overdraft according to the clear language is taking a loan in the sense of sec. 488 para 1, 1st sentence of the German Civil code (BGB).
• Taking a loan of 10.000 miles equals a cash value of Euro 245,00 according to http://www.miles-and-more.com/online...nodeid=1339783 and the borrower is certainly aware of the value of the loan he takes.
• The borrower is free to repay the loan by earning miles according to the terms of the loan contract.
• The overdraft gets cancelled asa. as the borrower loses status
• Loans have to be paid back, this is stipulated in sec. 488 para 1, 2nd sentence BGB.

So what? What do you believe an overdraft is? A free present? LH asks for only 1200 Euro for 50.000 miles, this is less than you could expect when taking your loan: http://www.miles-and-more.com/online...0303&solo=norm.

And to be really serious and not talking as a lawyer: If somebody is not able to get 50.000 miles from what promotion ever to pay back his mile-loan he has not paid any attention to FT - There were so many possibilities to get 50k miles for small money. This "somebody" took advantage of the overdraft and hoped that LH would never come back to him. As a LH shareholder I am glad they did.

@ FLYSURFER

Well, others might have been lucky so far, but obviously LH is doing something against that as otherwise mustaphaberkani would have the problem right now and posting about it. Whatever happened to the 1000's of others, who knows and who cares..?? If I get caught speeding and have to pay a fine....I cannot say others didn't..!!!

@ FLYING LAWYER
This "somebody" took advantage of the overdraft and hoped that LH would never come back to him. As a LH shareholder I am glad they did.

Couldn't agree more ^

I'd have to agree with LHstatus (and funny, me not being a lawyer I got his point immediately). You've spoken more like a shareholder in both posts.

In any case, if it were legal to have forcibly collected on these "debts" previously, then Lufthansa would have done so a loooooooooooong time ago. But they didn't. Because they knew better. They might try again, who knows. But either way, in previous threads we (yes, me too) beat this horse to death, unrecognizably pulverized at this point.