Someone took my miles
 

One day I decided to use my miles for an award ticket, and I found out that an award ticket had been requested and used by someone bearing the same last name, first name but different location in different countries. The airline could contact the person who took my miles by the mistake of a travel agent and let her pay the ticket she had used. I got my miles back to my account.
But I am still not happy. Can I sue the airline ? Or can they compensate me with any free tickets ? If I take legal action, what will be the result ? Is this worth ?

I'm not sure what your legal rights are, but I always thought it was a little fishy that all you need to do to cash in miles (potentially worth thousands of dollars) was call up the airline, give them a mileage number and a name.

I sitll wonder with so many common names and the owners never aware of their accounts, someone who has the same name could request an award through an airline by probably getting your FFP numbers from a travel agent or airline staff pretending yourself is the account owner but can't recall your FFP number. I am not trying to cheat, but in reality as I had my experience I don't trust anybody.

How were you harmed? What type of legal action would you take?

compensation
 

I agree, you really weren't harmed. However, the least the airline could do is compensate you for your time via some bonus miles added to your account.

You really weren't harmed, beyond the inconvenience, so I don't think legal action is appropriate. What I *would* ask for is, in writing, exactly what steps the company is taking to insure this doesn't happen again (to you or anyone else). They'll probably give you a song and dance about not releasing internal policies...but I would still ask.

Don't we all have miles removed and re-credited from our accounts all the time?
I really don't see that the airline reacted unfair in any way - especially not
compared to the real hassle lounge and gate agents give us, when they
invent excuses for declining our requests.

Mileage Losses
 

Several carriers do require your PIN number to cash in your miles.

Given that the airline knew the travel agent here, what might have happened was that the agent called the airline and they just pulled the wrong frequent flyer number - not the fault of the traveler but sloppiness by the airline. At least you are now whole.

Similar problem 10 years ago with AA
 

Sorry to say that I'm not too surprised to hear this after what happened to me about 10 years ago.

I'd saved up enough AA miles to fly my family and my inlaws (5 tix, in all) from Cleveland to Hawaii. I called and made the reservation on the first day that the airline was selling tickets for the date we needed to fly. They held the reservation for an 7 additional days because the computer wouldn't give us return reservations until that time. I reconfirmed it all seven days later and as I recall, this was about 350 days before we would travel. I wasn't given seat assignments but was told to call 30 days before the trip and I could get them then. When I made that call, I was told that I had CANCELLED the reservation 5 months before--I HAD NOT! Shaking with rage, I got a supervisor on the phone and demanded to know the details. She tried to make it my problem, but after my persistence, she was able to tell me that a travel agent in NEW JERSEY had cancelled my reservation and then purchased the 5 seats. She implied that I had done so and that was when the fur began to fly. She said that the 5 of us should show up at the airport on the day we wanted to travel and that "maybe" we could get seats out of the 10, or so, "phantom" seats that are not released until 24 hrs. before the flight. I told her to give me the seats now, but she refused. I got nowhere until I called CSNBC and spoke to Steven Pollan's producer (he was a consumer reporter at the time). He called the airline and when they found out that he would put this problem on television, AA called me in just 2 hours and I had five reserved seats for that flight.

I have a VERY unique name, both first and last, so I have NO IDEA how this occurred--except for the possibility that the travel agent may have been able to access the manifest and saw that I had 5 reserved seats and that no money had been exchanged for them. "Taking" these seats would not have required any $ refund, so I would not have noticed it unless my AA account statement tipped me off. At that time, the airline was slow to credit accounts, so I hadn't seen any change. Although everything turned out just fine, it was very traumatic having this happen. Now, I use the computer to check accounts monthly!


I'm glad that things were straightened out for you. I don't think there is any legal recourse, but you could certainly appeal to customer service for some perk--extra miles, an upgrade, etc. Now, if it happens again, try the Conde Nast Travel magazine Ombudsman--they seem to get excellent results when travellers report problems.

I had miles taken out of my account for a flight on 9/11/01 (flight ticketed the night before) from BOS-LAX - and I most assuredly was not the user of this flight (I'm based on the other coast!). I was pretty creeped out about this (discovered it a few days later when looking at my online account status while trying to reschedule a trip). AA customer support took a few days to get it sorted out, but eventually the miles were reinstated to my account. No "bonus" miles or anything of a courtesy was offered. I was just glad to get my miles back.

In my state you can't sue unless you can show financial damage. So, no, you couldn't file suit here since your miles were returned. Since the rules differ for every state and country, you really don't know unless you ask a local attorney. That said, I don't believe that being "not happy" is cause for litigation, or we would all be in court all the time. A similar case would be: My husband wasn't happy when someone stole his credit card, and the credit card company chose not to prosecute, but since it was the credit card company and not us that was out the money, we had no grounds for a lawsuit just for being uneasy that his good name had been borrowed by a thief. I agree that it's creepy, but I think it happens to everyone sooner or later.

Well I think this is why UA makes you go into the airport (or one of their -RIP- ticket offices) to sign off that you are getting a ticket for someone else. If you can't go to the office, UA will mail the paper ticket to the mailing address on your account * If the person has the same last name as you, then you don't have to do it *. You will also get a confirmation receipt in the mail for all award tickets you redeem irregardless of who it's for. I even get them for my travels. I guess there are a few levels in place to help protect you -- or a couple of opportunities for red flags to be raised to get your attention.

So ostensibly a family member could scam a ticket from your account, but it might be easy enough to figure out why the traveler was from their ticket.

Extra thing I found out -- I was getting a ticket for my aunt who has a different last name, but I did not have time to sign off at the airport. UA let me designate my mom -- because she & I have the same last name -- to sign off for me on the ticket at another UA office.

If the OP was unable to make the trip they wanted to ticket with said miles and had to pay for some more expensive ticket or something while all of this was being resolved, then I would see that as a financial loss (but I'm not sure a court would necessarily agree). Also, your husband's credit score could have been affected merely by virtue of the fact that the theft took place. Merely being the victum of fraud can, in fact, make you a riskier customer in the eyes of the credit agencies for having fallen victum to theft/fraud/etc. Again - a lowered credit rating could certainly be seen as having financial damages.

All that said, I think it would be ridiculous to **sue** over this since the situation was resolved and all of the miles were ultimately credited to the OP's account. I think it would be lumped in with all of the frivolous fishing for a nice payday that already runs too rampant in the US courts. OK - there was a problem, but they fixed it. Sometimes things don't run like clockwork because people and systems can be fallible. Unless this somehow really hurt you I think that a lawsuit would ridiculous. Just my .02

peace,
~Ben~

I have another concern here. Not all of us are in the habbit of checking our FF account balances and reconciling as we do with our money accounts. May be we should be doing that more often.

Welcome to FlyerTalk, swaluvr.

Interesting experience you had. I'm happy for you that it all turned out fine.

Did you chat with the folks who had your seats?

If you want to protect yourself, most airlines will allow you to put a PIN on your account.

This way the person would have to know your name, address and PIN in order to fraudulently or mistakenly use your miles.

Try contacting them again.

Thanks for the welcome!
 

No, I didn't get to chat with those "in our seats" because I was never told what seats they were assigned. Our assigned seats were very nice, though--first row bulkhead seats in coach class right in front of the video screen and easy for my then 6 year old to go to the restroom. Plenty of legroom, too, and that was great because I hadn't had enough miles for first class or business.

Believe me, if I had been able to identify the people "in my seats", I'd have played very dumb and gotten as much info as I could have about the travel agent and the transaction(s). I'd have then been able to call the actual agent/agency and confront them about what they'd done. AA would not tell
me the name of the agent/agency and they didn't want to pursue it once they determined that they had seats to give me. I'd let it go because my first battle was getting all 5 of us to Hawaii at the same time!

See you on the boards!
SWAL

Creepy indeed!
 

Wow Shannon -- that was indeed creepy! That wasn't one of the hijacked flights was it? I wonder if the Homeland Security folks would be interested in knowing about your experience...

With the rise in identity theft, I believe more attention needs to be made to confirming exactly who the parties to a transaction are. Even without deliberate identity theft, mistaking two different people of the same or similar names can create all sorts of problems, as I have personally experienced:

1. Stockbroker with same first/last name as me skips out on hotel conference room payment, the hotel comes after me. Resolved with one phone call.

2. Get a call from a US Securities Exchange Commission investigator about the same guy in # 1. Also resolved with a simple phone call.

3. Process server contacts me about a garnishee payment issue from a Heating contractor operated by a guy with almost identical name as me. Actually knew this guy due to association in same ethnic/church background. This could have really damaged my credit rating if it got filed against me instead of the other guy but thankfully convinced the server that I've never been associated with such a business but knew who it was and who founded the business (his father).

4. Accused of passing a bad cheque by The Bay - was due to a altered driver's license (my wallet stolen a while before hand) and a forged signature on a counterfeit cheque. Had to give a written afadavit stating it weren't me.

Most of these appear to have happened because either a phony address was given or the person has moved and they tracked me down using the phone directory to reverse look-up the name.

Glad to hear in the end it all worked out for you...Not even some bonus miles added for the aggrevation they caused you?

yikes
 

Boy, after all that, I'd probably change my name..

;)

I had the reverse happen....am in Finnair Saph and booked reward flights between US and Canada......5 months...no points taken from my account....if there is someone out there with missing points....sorry :D

This sounds like enough information to follow up and find out what happened. Did you contact the travel agency? Was there another
party of 5? The airline clearly knew who these people were. Did they
ever admit it?

I don't know about you, Jiffy, but I reconcile my AAdvantage account much more carefully than my checking account. I only get paid twice a month, but I earn miles far more frequently! :D

These questions were already answered in post #18.

Funny - I just had the opposite occur - miles showed up in my Aadvantage on-line account for a trip I didn't take - flight numbers, bonus and everything, round trip to chicago. Someone at aa.com must have discovered the error and a few days later they disappeared.

Has anyone ever been the permanent beneficiary of misposted or phantom miles?

Thanks, I missed that. Seems strange!