whose miles are they?!
 

I have a question, please forgive me if it has been answered elsewhere.

You join an Internet programme on the basis of a friend's referral. By doing so, you are both entered into a contest to win airline miles.

You win a whole mess of miles. Your friend wins nothing.

Your friend refers to your prize as "our" miles and tries continually to butter you up to give/sell at deep discount your miles to his friends and relations, on trips that you are not invited on.

Never mind that you had plans to spend your miles doing something else for yourself, your family, your special someone. You have already spent a few on trips for yourself.

Whose miles are they?! I believe they are MINE and as an only child, I don't share well. Other opinions appreciated.

Obviously, they are your miles....

Just because someone refers you, does not mean they deserve anything you win.

How many miles and what contest are you talking about?

William

They're in your account aren't they?
If so, then they are clearly your miles.
In any case, you friend can't give them away if they are in your account. Unless he/she impersonates you on the phone I suppose.....

Definitely yours and yours alone. You shouldn't be made to feel uncomfortable or obligated just because you won and he/she didn't.

If I went to the casino with my buddy and he drove me there and while we were walkign around suggested that I throw $10 on the roulette and I won, I might buy him a drink or dinner, but I sure wouldn't split the winnings with him. And I don't think that a good and conscientious friend would ask.

Sheesh.

peace,
~Ben~

Definitely yours. If I won enough I would maybe invite the friend away for a weekend, but with that attitude I definitely wouldn't.

never buy a lottery ticket for anyone... unless you have known and trusted that person for something like 20 years. In this case, too bad the promo didnt give the friend miles for referring you. You could offer to him or her, but they can never ask. that is std. friend/karma/winnings rules in my book.

If he had been nice, I MAY have considered giving him some to go on a trip. However, he is basically a sore loser and is jealous that you won and he didn't. Well that's just too bad. I would ask him if the shoe was on the other foot and he had won, would he have been as generous as he is asking you to be. I seriously would doubt it if he was being honest with you.

Even if you came from a family of 12 siblings, I would still have trouble sharing in this case.

I would E-Mail or print out this thread and show him what strangers have to say concerning this. He needs to "cool his jets"!!!

Hopefully, this will not ruin your friendship. If it does, then he is BOTH a sore loser AND not really your friend.

P.S. CONGRATULATONS on your good fortune and HAPPY FLYING!!!

They are yours.

A good friend would never ask for them.

I'm rolling the dice at the craps table at the Mandalay for a long time and making money for everyone. My friend bets $5 of his own money on hard eight for me, the shooter. I hit hard eight and the bet wins a bunch of money for ME. My friend asks for his $5 back, so I gladly give it back out of courtesy, but we both knew that the winnings were all mine.

Your friend should have referred his wife or children or parents if he wanted to keep the miles in the family. Take him out to dinner and you're even.

Hey Buddy,

We live in the same hemisphere & we post on the same bulletin board - lemme get some of our miles! ;)

Maxim to live by: If you loan a friend $20 and you never see him again it was $20 well spent.

If you lose your friend over this he was never a true friend.

Chances are that you friend recieved an "extra entry" into the contest by refering you. That was the reward for refering you. You won the miles with your entry, they lost with their entries. My account, my miles.

Hey, if you go fly a lot, you'll get a lot of miles. I think I should get some for giving you that lead. ;)

The miles are yours.



=======
A friend gave me $10 to put on #26 at the roulette table. I walked in, threw down $10 on #26 and won $350.

Then I played his bet...

You do owe your friend. Refer him on the next contest you enter. Now you are even.


Judge Judy Solomon

Thank you everyone!
 

Thank you Flyers for being on my side! Hugs all around. If it wasn't so hot I'd bake a cake too! :D

The miles were awarded to celebrate the launch of points.com . I won enough miles for (at the time) 12 business / 25 economy trips to the USA, deposited directly into my account. I have flown twice since then (Nashville and Las Vegas, business class, both for conventions) using points for me and my mom.

I want to use the points to make more trips MYSELF (cake shows, phonecard shows, somewhere interesting like Ireland or Australia), and also if I can get things patched up with my bf (Omaha) then visit him some more and he can come see me too when he stops being terrified of leaving the country and experiencing a little culture shock. (but that's fodder for another thread)

If the shoe were on the other foot, I may have suggested a trip together but I would have no expectations. He gave me a points ticket some years ago to fly to Toronto (cattle class, lost luggage and all) for a phonecard show, so we could exhibit together. But I didn;t ask/beg for that ticket.

So now I feel much better saying MINE MINE ALL MINE HAHAHAHAHA! :D I still dream about that hot fudge sundae at 29,000 feet, somewhere between DFW and YUL last year....

Hot Damn !!!!!!!

That's a nice win, congrats.

And if you'd like to enable a fellow Canadian now living in Texas to visit Quebec for the first time ...... :D :D :D

Hey, I'll even do the last segment in a jungle jet.

Ya, ya, I should burn my own miles :rolleyes:

EmailKid

they are clearly your miles, but i would probably throw your friend a bone and give him a ticket or two

Since you didn't have to ask for the ticket he gifted you, wouldn't you consider that magnanimous of him? I'm sure you can afford to be the same and offer him a domestic "cattle class, lost luggage" voucher without his having to ask.

You later indicated that this was enough for 25 Economy tickets to the US.
Would you have signed up and have been entered into the contest without your friend referring you to it? If you would not have signed up in time for the contest, I would think it odd that you would not offer to part with some (or one) of the trips WITHOUT being ased. But.... that might just be something I would do. One or two tickets, I might understand, but 25 tickets (or 12 business class tickets to the US) is another matter.

Just curious as to why you didn't mention his generosity in the original post. Kind of changes the scenario. :confused:

just curious - why does the principle change based on the amount of the prize?

I stand by my original comment. They are yours - giving your friend a portion would be nice but should not be expected.

Yes, it does. It also begs the question as to whether your friend also paid for the taxes and fees on your first free points flight.

--

I'm gonna lean way out the window on this one, and see if I fall out.

I'm not sure that either of your positions (yours or your friend's) is good for your friendship. OK, you say you didn't ask/beg, but your friend offered and you did accept. The question I'd ask myself: have I been enough of a friend to deserve that ticket and am I still acting like the friend I was when I accepted it?

I'm sure your friend is also confused and probably interpreting (rightly or wrongly) your position as being greedy and ungrateful, for both the previous free ticket and the referral that led to the win. I would've had a heart-to-heart with my friend a long, long time ago, rather than asking strangers to fortify my bunker against a friend. I save this type of stuff for my enemies.

You even say, had he won, you would've suggested another free trip on his miles, but wouldn't expect it. Why, then, would you suggest it? That alone shows your expectation.

Yes, the law says they are yours; I think you know that. Still, I think it's a bit harsh to say "MINE MINE ALL MINE HAHAHAHAHA!" (and you CAPPED it in both of your posts). Whether they're mine or not--with my true friends, I wouldn't be gloating, especially if that friend is the one who made it all possible.

I think you're looking at this in black-and-white and asking a bunch of miles hounds (meant affectionately) what we think. The law, and a lot of strangers are on your side. Yes, the miles are yours.

But, what I'd be considering: there will come a day when those miles are gone, probably due to expiration :p. When that day comes, will being 'right' have been worth it?

A friend and I used to play in gambling tournaments for extra income. We always discussed BEFORE the tournament how the win would be distributed. You have a situation where if your friend had won, you probably wouldn't have gotten anything, because it doesn't seem like you had any sort of arrangement, unless I missed it somewhere. So you don't owe your friend any of your win. A gift would be nice, but better make it a modest gift until you see your 1099-MISC. You are the one who will be paying taxes based on the value of your prize, not your friend.

For the record, our "deal" was that the winner kept 80 percent and the friend got 20 percent. It worked great, because both of us played often and won many times. But you have a one-time situation here. Your friend is likely to never win anything to share with you. So, again, my instinct is to say that a modest gift is fine...a friend "hinting" that he should take a significant part of your prize is being a little emotionally abusive for money and he is already willing to stress the friendship to get what he wants...so I would question how real your friendship ever was. Certainly I wouldn't try to buy his continued friendship with miles.

My advice is worth what you paid so think for yourself. I can only tell you what I would do and have done.

As Bob and Doug McKinzey would say, "Hey, take off, hoser"!

I guess each of you just needs to ask how much is the friendship worth to you . . .

Well, I am probably going against the grain here, but in my opinion you are a very bad friend indeed. Let us face it, if he had not referred you, you would have gotten nothing. Probably just looking greedily around for freebees...

If I were in your position and had won one flight, I'd have called him, depending on the mileage would have invited him for a drink or dinner. He would have been happy for you and all would be well.

You won a lot. The minimum would have been to have immediately offered him some flights or if you are really the greedy one, at least have said nothing.

It seems that elementary education and $$$ stop right at friendship. Too sad.

Let us wait for the future: you'll probably will enjoy your flights, I just wonder in what form the bill will be presented and then paid for. :(

So, this person gave you a ticket for free that he/she actually had to earn miles for...and you are unwilling even to return the favor from your windfall? And cackle about this???

With friends like you, who really needs enemies?

I think you have a clear ethical obligation to return the favor given by your friend.

You don't, however, seem too interested in "ethics."

And I thought that was a Canadian only show ....

BTW, that would be "Hey, take off, eh, hoser!" to be more properly Canadian.

Of course I somehow managed to lose the "eh" after living here in Texas all these years.

EmailKid

this space deliberately left blank
 

Thank you again for your continuing thoughts.

As a previous poster mentioned, everyone got an entry into the contest simply for joining up, plus additional entries for referring others to join. I do not remember referring anyone, so that would give me one entry.

I didn't care about the contest. I thought the site was interesting enough to join without dangling any contest in front of me. And it would not have mattered who promoted the referral, I would have joined. Winning miles was simply stunning and completely unexpected.

That being said, I believe there is a difference between (1) Person A offering Person B points/flights and (2) Person B feeling entitled to at least half of Person A's points. Considering there was no agreement in place in the event either won.

The heart-to-heart was tried a long time ago and it didn't help. Humor hasn't helped either. This person also has a history of setting up multi-stop itineraries and not travelling on them, for medical or other reasons, sacrificing the points (his own) in the process.

As for that other ticket I mentioned, I guess I didn't realize that it still had a string attached years later. I thought using it to participate in a convention I wasn't 100% committed to was "stringy" enough. Grog, regarding your fees question, I don't remember who paid them at the time.

The principle didn't change. Offering a couple of tickets out of 12 (or 25) is much easier to do than offering a couple of tickets out of a win of 1 or 2.

Throw him a free bizness trip at least.. it's just rude to keep them all when he got you into it.

I don't know why you are even asking on this board, go out and share the miles!!!

I'm not a big contributor to Flyertalk, but I was amazed by this thread.

I think that in the end what goes around, often comes around That's a trite phrase I know, but as I get older I find it to be true more and more. Be the kind of person you would want your children to be proud of.

I wouldn't hesitate to offer my friend a free ticket or two. What's a couple of trips compared to a friendship?

I also hope your friend doesn't read flyertalk, because in your latest post, you seem to be insulting him. (Something about booking trips and losing points...I don't really get it since I'm not an experienced flyer, but I get that it's an insult.) Is this supposed to make him less worthy of your generosity? Did your behavior in this case make you less worthy of his when he gave your that ticket?

As for your situation, I truly hope this is the worst dilemma you ever have in your life. I can't help but think that if life were more difficult for you (or maybe you are still quite young with no family responsibilities), you would understand the true concept of paying it forward.

IMHO your friend is wrong for "forcing" you but you should share the bounty of your own free will