Miles not Deducted?
 

Has anyone ever booked an award ticket - no, this is not an airline-specific question - and then notice that the miles were not deducted out of your account?

A friend of mine just told me this happened to him, and even showed me a printout of his award-ticket-conformation! All of the flights seemed confirmed, he was able to access it on the airlines website, and everything.

Does this ever happen? What repercussions could he face?

I have not heard of this happening. Were the flights booked recently or has your friend flown already? I wouldn't be surprised if the miles get taken out at some point. The best I had was when I earned miles on an awards ticket (AA miles used for a BA F flight, even got the F mileage boost).

It is airline specific as the award ticket was booked on a specific airline, you would get better answers in whatever forum it is.

This has happened to me many times with CO. They sometimes come out 5-10 days later (sometimes even later), however they always do come out.

Well, he hasn't flown yet - his flights aren't for another 10 or 11 months, haha. As for when he booked, I'm really not sure.

I don't really want to post it in a particular forum, because I don't really want to say which airline it was. I don't want to ruin his chances in any way, haha.

Some airlines may take longer to take the miles out. Based on when the flight is, it is impossible that he booked it much more than a month ago. He should assume that the miles will come out soon. The ticket should be fine anyways.

I guess it's possible. For the record, I have booked several similar awards )for myself and others) and have never noticed the miles NOT being deducted instantaneously.

That said, of course it's always possible the miles could be deducted at some point between now and when he flies. BUT, let's say they don't get deducted... Will he be denied boarding?

Very unlikely. If he has a valid PNR and ticket number, his ticket exists in the airline's system. If they could not manage to take his miles out for 11 months, I don't see how all of a sudden on the day of the flight they would realize their mistake and choose to deny boarding.

If this problem exists for the yet unnamed airline, it likely affected more than just one person. At some point they would notice the mistake and then take miles out of the account. Your friend (part of me thinks it might be you, I won't rat you I promise ;)) would be wise to not spend those miles on something else for a few months, that could cause an issue if/when they figure it out.

Haha - If only I were that lucky!!

Thankfully he has no future trips planned, so I don't see this as much of an issue.

As a side note though... I'm sure he's going to want to call up eventually to pick a seat and special meal (he's vegetarian). Should he worry about that? Will the airline - when/if he calls - be able to realize that miles weren't taken out? Obviously, he wouldn't be mentioning the minor mistake, but I just wonder if that would somehow come up in the conversation?

1000 miles says the OP, or the OP's "friend" has an award booked through a particular airline with a hub in PHL. It's happened before. It won't be the last. Just shut up about it. Also, conversely the reverse happens more often than it should and I suspect some people don't fight for the redeposit of the extra mileage.

FWIW - I suggest never discussing these situations publicly. Remember the first rule of fight club...

actually happened before. once i booked a JL award on AA miles and the miles never got deducted. On another occasion, i booked JL award again on AA miles they deducted the miles for the award but they also gave me flight miles on the award flight. No booking changes have been made prior to travel. It happens... my personal experience:D

Sounds to me like an AA booking that hasn't actually been ticketed yet. When you book an AA or OneWorld award, it can take up to a week before the flights are actually ticketed. During that week, you can access and confirm your reservation online, and it will say confirmed, but it's really not. Assuming that's the case, the points will come out once it's officially ticketed.

If your 'friend' has already made it past that point, then who knows, maybe you got lucky!

Ditto, sometimes it just takes a few days. I saw an upgraded itin take months to get the miles deducted, but sure enough, they were.

We had a flight booked using 100K miles. It was booked in February and the miles did not get taken out till this month. All along,there was a valid PNR & everything. Flights also showed as confirmed even when I called the partner.

Frankly, I'm going to say that after giving some time for the airline to deduct the miles, your friend ethically should contact them and ask about it. Maybe they will reward him in some way for his honesty (maybe not), but in any case it's the right thing to do.

This happened to me, I booked 2 one-way biz tickets using BA miles over the phone and after the booking I saw that the miles were not deducted. I waited a few days to see if it would eventually disappear from my balance and after 5 days it stayed the same. So I got paranoid and finally called BA and brought it to their attention. The cs rep escalated the matter, thanked me profusely for letting them now and right there and then the miles were taken out from my balance.

I was worried that since the miles weren't taken out then the booking might not have been properly ticketed. However I got the e-ticket #s, booking references, seat assignments all in place so I don't know what gives.