For instance, the sale of Kellogg's AA certificates on Ebay. We've all seen these sales. They're potentially untraceable and the legality of the sale is interesting. (Am I allowed to sell you an empty cereal box? Am I allowed to sell you a piece of an empty cereal box?)

surely the whole subject of buying things when you earn miles on your CC but then returning them and getting cash. Or using gift cards and money order schemes...

Of course, this is partly how I LIVE in mile land sometimes so please DON'T write your article cuz you will wreck my plan man

I think you should also write about the fraud airlines have comitted against their customers by limiting the number of award seats or by only making 'double miles' award tickets available.

Airlines get 100% control over their currency with absolutely no oversight or accountability from anyone.

I swear, I was certain you were going to focus on the fraudulent nature of the programs themselves, not occasional, anecdotal acts of fraud/deception committed by consumers. The former would be much more interesting.

So every once in awhile some hustler sells some Kellogg's certs. So what?

Much more compelling is the story of how the airlines themselves establish and maintain a culture of fraud with irrational, holdup pricing, bizarre and one-sided fare restrictions, and FF programs that promise things they don't deliver and feature miles whose value shrinks all the time. When the average consumer feels so consistently scr*wed they rationalize doing things they might not otherwise do as a way of "getting even." Write about THAT.

how about the fraud of the airlines not allowing a passenger bill of rights, or the fraud of how they knew about 911 before hand but did nothing.

to redeem points for an F class NYC to Kabul.... no availability...

"the fraud of how they knew about 911 before hand but did nothing."

LOL

well those Al Queda people are probably REALLY pissed at the world cuz they dont even GET miles!

Heck I'd be too, ya know?

The key here probably is to determine the exact definition of "fraud" as applied by the airlines' programs.

While we as pax ("willing victims") definitely have legitimate gripes about our treatment, in theory we have accepted the providing companies "rules" of behavior. The company will be defining fraud most likely relating to revenue-loss related to rule-abuse and/or deliberate malfeasance.

I don't know specifically how airlines deal with this, my experience relating to fraud prevention is from another industry entirely, but I would think that what sort of fraud prevention each airline has in place depends significantly on how they choose to police the programs and their flexibility and willingness to accommodate any customer who has been defrauded, or if that is a concern for them at all.

I would not be surprised to learn that there is some sort of automatic monitoring in place similar to what is often seen with credit cards. I.E., monitoring for sudden unusual changes in the member behavior, as well as larger, program-wide sudden changes in behaviors or patterns of behavior relating to accrual or redemption of awards.

However, I think that you will have a very difficult time getting anyone in one of these programs to talk with you on any of this, particularly if there is any possibility of it being made public, or, worse, delivered directly into the hands of what is arguably one of the savviest groups around, known for "exploiting"/maximizing the benefits and rules relating to airline FF plans....

Good Luck.....

that's right...

what's also important is what to call it. Is it fraud or is it "not doing what a program intended for?"

Like many here abd eksewhere, I was doing a ton of gift card schemes to get miles and while the mileage earning CC and the accompanying airline seemed to have no problem with my activity, the gift card issuing banks would eventually change their programs and marketing deals because so many people were "in on something" and this ultimately probably cost them some money. They would change the terms or make new fees so it was harder to do the gig, or make the fees such that it was hardly even worth doing it anyway. And in more than one case, I got letters of refusal from a few GC companies with my funds eventually returned. I was not in trouble legally, and in the case of US Bank, I was never reprimanded with the activity on my US Bank Visa or the miles program at NW airlines that it ties to, but that bank's gift card department flatly booted me saying I was "thought to be possibly involved with a high level useage of the gift card I held that generated activity that did not appear to fit what the product was intended for..."

Legal? Sure. Ethical? Maybe, maybe not. Possible? Yup. Against banking rules? Well, they can change those when they want, so yes and no. Ending a relationship with that bank forever? Probably not, but use of a certain product could have been ended. In some cases, users simply reapplied later and were fine again. It's all subjective and hard to care about when you are working with millions.

Actuaries...

cbellero - an interesting topic ^

Last year there was news of a successful prosecution by some airlines against a contract check in agent in Australia who had put his own FFP#s against passenger details and used the resulting millions of miles on award travel. IIRC there was a thread on FT discussing.

Wow! ...he probably partly solved the whole issue of people who dont bother claiming miles or even signing up for FFPs being discussed in this thread :

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=650034

Great idea for your dissertation - there's plenty of evidence here on FT of multiple ways people defraud the airlines.

All I am worried about is the OP is gonna make $ or grades on writing a paper about how to take down a bunch of cool loopholes and cool FT sharing people and we are gonna lose miles while the airlines are held accountable for NO wrong doing on their own.

Oh well.
MM

The same can be said about (most, at least) hotel award programs.

Obviously you've put some research into this already as you are using this for your major academic paper. Care to share what research you have already on this topic? This way we know you are serious and won't have us formulate a majority of your research. Heck, even we can learn a thing or two

Care to share?

Mike