As Randy noted previously:

Understand this: airlines are always actively putting these guys out of business. The first requirement for settling out-of-court? The airlines want the customer list. They then set up watchdogs on all the accounts listed and watch for "unusual" award redemption paterns. A one-off is usually undetected, but multiple sales is asking for trouble. BTW, I know many, many, many frequent flyers who have had their accounts frozen. There is a risk, don't let anyone tell you different.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/003811.html

I think there are a number of separate issues:

1. Should this discussion be permitted on this forum? I'm not sure that Randy has prohibited it. Maybe he has but not in the thread that doc points to. If Randy doesn't want this discussion on his forum, we should respect that. If not, I don't see why it's not fair game.

2. I don't know why, but people get really worked up about selling miles. As others have noted, there's plenty of discussion in these forums about activities that violate various airline rules.

3. Assuming people are willing to discuss, there's a serious question of whether selling miles is a good idea. Randy provided one perspective on the risks. Of course, some people do sell miles and I have to believe that some of them are reasonably well informed but willing to take the risk. It would be interesting to hear their thoughts.

It seems to me that the overwhelming majority of the FTs on this board would have no desire to sell their miles. Let's face it, most of us are mileage addicts and want to accumulate miles rather than receive money for them.

For example, look at how many users here rather pay higher phone rates, higher (mileage qualifying) hotel rates, etc, rather than save a few bucks.

Yes, I I fall into that catagory too. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I never thought of this before, but what a wonderful strategy for the airlines to use (wonderful from the airlines' perspective, not the passenger!):

Let's say they figure out an award ticket was probably sold improperly at the point of departure. Instead of addressing it then, let them travel to their destination, and get them on the return. Whether the people end up forking over the one-way fare to get back home, or figure out some other creative way to handle the situation on the same or different airline, it's quite likely that the message will have been delivered loud and clear.

I agree completely. Although I realize that many people disagree, I think there are those of us here that enjoy figuring out how to get the best deal without breaking the rules.

I don't like paying more than I have to for something any more than the next guy. But, I understand the business reasons why the fare structures and award programs are set up the way they are. Every time I am able to purchase a $200 round-trip ticket to go half way across the country, I realize that this is possible only because someone else is paying a $1800 Y fare. If the airlines were lax in enforcement of tariff and award travel rules, many fewer people would be paying the higher fares, and I believe that the end result would be that I would end up paying much more than I do now.

I realize that WN is in a different ballpark as far as their fare structure, but everyone knows going into it that they really are a different animal than the full service airlines.

As far as people pointing out to briane that what he/she wants to do is against the rules, I think it was important that someone do this, if for no other reason than to let briane know that this is actually the case. It's quite possible that briane was not aware that selling miles was improper. If we're going to comment on the post, it's certainly a good thing to address this issue.

I wonder how many people that purchase award tickets from a broker are not aware that what they are doing violates the conditions of carriage, and that they may get stuck somewhere with no valid ticket home? Since I've never dealt with these brokers, I don't know, but I'd be very surprised if they disclose this to their customers. Where's the ethics in that?

One would assume that if a broker wants to stay in business they would at least alert the passengers that they are on an award ticket. 99% of all broker tickets are for business/first class tickets. If you are going to save $3000 to $4000 off a ticket, you are most likely going to go along with whatever the broker tells you to do when you use the ticket.

If someone buys 90,000 miles in kellogs mile certificates and sells the blank certificates to someone as a pre business class ticket, is this legal? If the coupons are blank are they not just selling printed cardboard?