anonplz

Yeah, but at a cost of $30 /year. Better off sticking with SPG Amex. Same price, more flexibility. I suppose it would be good as a backup at places that don't take Amex, but then why not get the C/B AAdvantage M/C, to get 1 mile/$1 spent, $50 per year? Better deal.

Unless you really, really want the miles on Alaska Airlines, then it makes more sense.

Marathon Man

Is the C/B AA card a debit card??? If not you cannot do returns for cash back like you can with any PIN transaction...

As for Amex/SPG, yes, you are true, but with amex you cannot return and get cash back. Instead they credit back your card and you do not get the miles. Also, spg card costs more money per year!

also, you can directly use Alaska miles on NWA... you can also use them on AA. AA miles do not work on NWA and Alaska. Of course one could find someone to trade with, but if you wish to control and use your own miles, I found great ease with redeeming them on NWA, which I used a lot. I once found a flight that was full when trying to redeem BOS-AMS on NWA (a coveted direct fllight to europe from my home town) but when I called Alaska Airlines to get that same flight, they had some NWA seats in THEIR itinerary!! I took the seats.

regarding returns and miles, I had thought of this long ago when I first got the BofA alaska card and had used it in stores a few times. I had originally obtained it because it worked when people could buy money orders and cash them out to pay mortgage. Now those days are gone but I had kept the card and earned a quick and easy 50k right off, and then did a lot of returns at stores too and found out about this other good stuff. I figured, hey, a half mile was good enough for things I would not have gotten any other way!

I know you can convert 20k SPG points into AA or NWA or Alaska mile awards if you really wanna, but I crindge a bit even now when I see someone actually doing it. 20k SPG points is a couple nites at one of Aspen, CO's best resort hotels! Hey I will use some otherwise useless UAL awards to fly BOS to ASE and save my AA miles for trips to Maui, which THEY more easily redeem for my needs and timeframes!

So it all works for different people in different ways.

anonplz

I'm not a lawyer, and this is just my individual opinion, but setting aside any ethical considerations about such an arrangement, we all pretty much know what happens to these things eventually: the company catches on to how someone is costing them more money than such company is willing to spend retaining such customer, and THEN (even sometimes for no other reason than envy), they put a stop to it somehow. Or the practice becomes more and more popular, and same happens.

SirFlysALot

When I bought my spouse a car for her birthday I was unable to put more than the down payment on a CC. I think they only allowed 5,000.

If you could buy a car on a CC every car would be a a trip or two!

Marathon Man

seems the gift card and money order people caught on rather quickly and you are correct sir.
BUT with stores it is often harder because of teh fact that you can and also DO do some other legit buying and returning of things that gets easily and countlessly woven into these "non standard" transactions. Therefore, they cannot really "catch on" without spending way too much money or resources. They hope "we" just do not totally abuse it. I mean, no one here is proposing blatantly going into Home Depot to buy and return $5,000 worth of wood every day 3 times a day at the very same time of day in the same store, but I bet if someone did it, that guy would, like the pudding guy, get away with it once and be the star in his own world, and then yes, rules might change.

As for cars, BA did that Jaguar purchase and sign up thing. The act of test driving the car and mailing in some certs gave me one free ticket to Maui!

MM

anonplz

Excellent! ^

Marathon Man

is it unethical because YOU know the person doing it has an issue with "intent" or because of something else?

curious.
I mean, one could argue that a mileage run is unethical and yet, the customer still goes into the store, buys the product and uses it, but just uses it to get miles. It would be a real bummer if some Katrina family member could not get a seat on a flight because someone took that seat just to do a mileage run, but who knows this anyway?...

In this case, whose to say the customer doesnt go into the store, buy $1000 worth of stuff and then returns $950 of it every time?

if something I do gets me to end up buying $50 worth of stuff in your store, we would both make out, right? That is, unless you KNOW I am just in it for the miles. You dont know that I intended to return things all the time. Only if I tell you...

I am just curious about this sort of thing...

MM

nako

No, what I think it really comes down to is another attempt to justify questionable behavior by using a non-comparable situation. (Frankly, throwing Katrina victims in the mix is a pretty sleazy way to try and do it, too, but that's just my opinion.)

Mileage runs aren't against program rules (save for times where Delta's Revenue Protection Unit starts cracking down on excessive routings). You're buying a ticket, within the scope of the FF program and routing rules, flying the route, and collecting the mileage. Though it's certainly not within the intent of the FFP, it's not against the rules. Therefore, it's a loophole that many people can and do take advantage of.

Returning credit card purchases for cash, on the other hand, is against store policies (due to the loss in merchant fees) as well as the credit card merchant agreements (due mainly to the potential for theft or fraud). Further, in the scenario that you present, the store that still sells $50 worth of stuff because you've returned $950 may not be better off in the end. They're still out the merchant fee, which - if the merchant is paying 2 percent of the transaction - is about $20, which could be the entirety of the profit margin (and then some) on the $50 worth of goods that they did sell.

MM, I know that you've defended these sorts of schemes by saying, "It's just another loophole." And I'm here again to tell you that you're wrong. The key to a loophole is that there is a caveat or an omission in the rules that allows you to do what you're doing. On Sunday, for example, I flew SEA-LAX-RNO on AS to get extra mileage - even though there is a non-stop SEA-RNO - and I got the extra mileage with no problem. Since there's no rule against it, that would be the classic definition of a loophole.

With this scheme, like buying money orders or gift cards with credit cards, it's not a caveat or an omission that's being worked through within the rules. It's a scheme that is predicated on breaking rules. Actively pursuing it, IMO, is crossing the line. But we know that on FT, situational ethics says that's perfectly acceptable to the bulk of the posters.

Mike

Marathon Man

well said my friend, and if you are not a lawyer of sorts, you should be one.
What bugs me in all of this are three things though:

1) if no one knows but the doer of something, then who can prove or care about the ethics of that person's actions other than, say, God (if he/she is even watching at the moment, and that person believes in him/her anyway)?

2) that store still makes $30 and yeah you are right but they still made the $30. Why do all the ethicisist come out of the wood work when someone does this stuff anyway?

3) your phrase, "And I'm here again to tell you that you're wrong." is sort of like me hearing the all too common phrases of this sad day in my world: "The Yankees are here to tell the Red Sox they just dropped out of first place!"

Well, I don't need to hear it--and besides, we will come back and beat them when it matters in a week anyway! Unless you are a Yankees fan, are you HERE to tell me things for the sole purpose of being here to tell me when I am wrong? If so, do you seek out threads of people who do things you think are wrong just like guys like me seek out ways to screw the system? Are we not, then, basically the same? You know, some say that Sox and Yankee fans are exactly the same too.


Yeah, I am making analogies that are totally nuts, but that's just me and you already know that. As I said in the beginning, your post was well said my friend, and if you are not a lawyer of sorts, you should be one. That's a compliment and we just have different opinions on how to approach this vast games of miles in the FT world.

As well, I can say is that I have not yet gone into a store and continually purchased $1000 worth of good and then returned it all for the sole purpose of getting miles. But I am not saying I may not do something like it some day if I reallllly needed those miles and could get them in no other way...

MM

ned

“like buying money orders or gift cards with credit cards, it's not a caveat or an omission that's being worked through within the rules. It's a scheme that is predicated on breaking rules”

Why is buying money orders or gift cards with credit cards breaking the rules?

nako

The vast majority of money order vendors prohibit the purchase of a MO with a credit card, due to fraud potential. It would be ridiculously easy for an unscrupulous person to take a stolen credit card, buy a money order, and thereby convert the entire credit limit of that card into a form that is extremely difficult to trace.

(The only money order vendor that I know of that allows money orders to be purchased with credit cards is Western Union's online auction payment service, BidPay. Their fees, however, make it a prohibitively expensive proposition strictly for the miles.)

The same goes, in part, with gift cards - some stores (such as Wal-Mart) will give back refunds onto a gift card when no receipt is presented. A person could theoretically buy merchandise with a stolen card, return it without the receipt to get the gift card, take that card to another store, and walk out with the full value of the card in cash. (Or, the person can just cut out the middle man - buy the gift card with the stolen credit card, then convert it to cash at a later date. In either instance, before the store receives notification of the chargeback, the funds in the gift card are long gone.)

This is a part of the reason why, again, the vast majority of stores will not allow cashout of gift cards (unless it is in a state that requires cashout of gift cards by law, which aren't very many). Note that it's not generally against policy to buy a gift card with a credit card. The rules generally prohibit that gift card to be converted into cash, which is where the miles scheme falls apart.

So, in both examples, to utilize either of these schemes as a means of getting free miles requires breaking store policies and rules that are supposed to disallow the activity.

Mike

ned

Are you saying that it is OK as long as you are not using a stolen card or violating store policy?
Is it not the store’s responsibility to set, communicate, and enforce their policy as opposed to you or me?

kanerf

Buy a very expensive First Class ticket somewhere with your mileage earning card and than cancel it and get your refund and keep the miles.

paradocs

Hi there Marathon Man! Hope all is well! I see you are philosophizing again.

You said: "AA miles do not work on NWA and Alaska."

If you mean that you cannot redeem AA miles to travel on Alaska Airlines that is incorrect. I needed two last minute tickets to Alaska (on Alaska Airlines) - they were close to $800 each. I used my AA miles instead.

hannibal151

Don't they usually take away your miles if you return the ticket?