+1

Completely different situation than the OP and no different than earning miles on a ticket purchased for you by your employer, friend, or family.

I have to disagree with your response and JonathanIT's describing my view as simplistic. That is unless you also consider comments such as, "Do what you know is right"; "The Golden Rule"; "What does your gut tell you to do", also simplistic. It is usually easy to tell what is ethical, it's sometimes hard to do the ethical thing. I've found that when people ask, they're looking for someone to agree with what they want to do, which isn't always the ethical thing. FWIW.

Gary - I don't think you believe that under no circumstances should the OP use the points?
I think the OP is just asking what would be the appropriate / ethical amount of calling / emailing.
Knowing the RIGHT thing to do isn't the same thing as knowing WHAT to do.

A similar situation in a restaurant
 

I recently encountered a similar situation in a local NYC restaurant. I accompanied a friend to a restaurant in his neighborhood. During the meal, the waitress forgot to add one item to the bill.

As we were getting ready to go to the cashier to pay, I said to my friend that we could simply tell the owner and our bill could then be corrected (upwards).

My friend told me that the owners of the restaurant were very strict with the employees, and treated them harshly. If we pointed out the mistake, the owners would likely suspect that the employee was deliberately giving away food to friends and strangers alike. Our innocent pointing out of an error in the bill would likely be seen as denouncing the employee.

At that point, I kept quiet. We paid the bill, and departed. I felt comfortable not giving the owners any ammunition to use in badgering a hard working employee.

Sometimes, silence is best.

Very true.

The ethical thing to do is to point out the error. But, I think there should be a way to do it so that the good Samaritan is not put through hoops of bureaucracy. After all, you are not the person who made the error. So, I would write a letter, send it to the hotel manager (or corporte office), and be very clear about what the error is. Email is probably sufficient, but the best CYA is to send it with a return receipt. After this proper notification, the responsibility lays at the hotel management to make the correction. In the letter, I might even add a stipulation that if they do not make the correction in 6 months, then these extra points belong to your account.

It's easy to be ethical; what's hard to do is to get the right thing done.

If an extra $200 is credited to my checking account, I would notify the bank in the same way, by writing, but I would not stipulate that the money would belong to me after a certain period of time. The reason is simple--banks can go after you in nasty ways and they will get their money back, especially when they made the error. And don't expect a heartfelt thank-you either.

shabster - In my first post (#7) I suggested the appropriate action would be to contact the hotel point company, they could then take the appropriate action. If they leave the points fine, if they take them, that's also fine. I would wait a bit before I'd consider using them, probably 30 days or so. After a certain point one would have to remember that x points aren't really mine, and that's not realistic.

same here. returned 60k miles to AA that they mistakenly credited me. if they had argued I would have given up but felt calling to point out the error (in my favor) was simply the right thing to do. character has cost.

Not too long ago the waiter at dinner put the wrong bottle of wine on our tab. Things were a bit chaotic at one point and we got the other table's wine on our bill. It was ~$30 different in price in my favor. I didn't hesitate at all in pointing out the mistake to the waiter and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

In the OP's case it is not particularly clear what exactly happened during the original call. It sounds like they called the hotel, not the program, so the audit trail is somewhat stilted. I'd call it in and point out that the points aren't mine. You may not get to keep them but I don't think it is at all vague in terms of right/wrong. If the original call was to the program office and they let the points stay then the points are yours.

I'm also not sure what the difference is between this case and finding $200 cash in a wallet. If that's what the points are worth and that's what the cash is worth what's the difference? You may not know exactly where to return them to but you know that they aren't yours and you know that there is a way to work towards getting them to the correct home. You don't have to complete the return (assuming you ultimately cannot) but moving in that direction is the right way to go.

Thanks for all the responses. I was curious about who would chime in since doing nothing in my fact setting would be (in my view) far less egregious than actions freely admitted to on a daily basis on FT, Fat Wallet and many other places. Note that I was not curious about what I should do (see below) but about what mix of folks would respond.

It turned out that just about everyone responding took the high road, advising to report the error. Yet there's people who buy on one credit card to earn miles, then return the item on another to avoid returning the miles. There's folks who repeatedly sign-up for bonuses available only once to new customers using multiple email accounts. I wonder why those folks didn't respond to my question. Maybe the word "Ethics" in the title scared them off. It seems to me that some of this stuff is a fine line, some is a matter of personal opinion but some of it is just wrong. Why is it that people who wouldn't dream of shoplifting don't think twice about other, equally wrong behavior?

When I spoke to the hotel, I told them about the error but they said they can only add points, not make corrections. I then called the program itself and the CSR, somewhat amazed at my call, said that they would not initiate a correction and that they would also not make a correction to my account even if the person who stayed at the hotel found the error. I also had a line on who that person might be, so I sent them an email but I haven't heard back yet. I have the CSR's name and I won't bother with further backing. If their agent says to enjoy my good luck, I'll do just that.

I would bet the folks who suggested you take the high road wouldn't do the things you mention either. Although I have seen them discussed here on FT, I don't believe most FT'ers resort to such questionable practices in general.

I would attempt to return both to their rightful owner.

The only difference is that I'd make a little more effort in the case of the wallet because of the huge inconvenience it is for an individual if he/she doesn't get his ID, credit cards, etc. back. I'd be willing to invest more of my time to save someone else a large amount of time.

The owner may or may not care much about a small or moderate amount of cash inside, but I'd know he/she cared about everything else. I think my own empathy for the situation would drive me to reunite the wallet with its owner.

I'd feel a little empathy for someone having to hassle with a missing stay request, but my own level of vigor in the pursuit to reunite owner and points would be less. Probably a phone call or an email alerting the hotel to the problem, inviting them to take back the points and give them to the actual guest.

+1...Whenever someone starts a thread thinking they've found that "loophole" (buy/return schemes), the vast majority of responses strongly condemn the action. Usually it's someone newer to the forum...maybe a bit new to the mileage game.

Sign-up bonuses are a bit of a gray area because we're frequently bombarded with direct mail for additional cards with bonuses. A lot of people churn cards. I don't think that act is unethical in and of itself. The banks have enough data in their possession to control access to credit. It's their choice how they act upon it. If a consumer is providing false information to obtain credit, that's a different story - unethical and probably illegal.

Last year 25,000 points showed up in my Membership Rewards account.I call American Express and told them.Thier responce was "Thanks for your honesty,however enjoy the points"

In this particular situation the "ethical" thing to do is quite apparent. That being said, your reductionist view is simplistic.
Let me pose a classic dilemma where there is ethical ambiguity. Your wife needs medicine and you don't have insurance. You can't afford the medicine from the pharmacy. You decide to steal it to save her life. Now hopefully you won't dismiss such a scenario as unrealistic and shirk the task of evaluating ethical conundrum. I hope you can at least see that there are examples abound where an analogy to pregnancy comes up a bit short.
As for the golden rule, does this apply unconditionally? Is it OK to confine a killer because you wouldn't want to be confined? Is it ever OK to use abusive or torturous tactics to obtain information? While I believe I know what may be right I can see there are many areas where ethical clarity is elusive.