Dear All,

I have seen various threads on similar topics but I have a 'friend' who had 60,000 miles credited by accident to their account. It was due to a cancellation of award travel that wasn't credited and required a call to the ff desk for the original miles to be returned.

I'd like to think it was a credit due to the mistake made but who knows.

Cheers.

do you mean 60k was subtracted?

I'm afraid it isn't clear. If an award ticket was canceled (for how many miles) and was credited back then what is the accident. Were more miles deposited than were the original award ticket?

------------------
Ms.DtG

Sorry for the murkiness. There was a 60k deduction for booking one, and then another 60k deduction for a second booking (both unticketed). When they made the second booking (their suggestion) to replace the first they said they would cancel the first booking. The cancellation of booking one never gave me back the miles until I called 5 days later when I was checking my account and still didn't have it back.

I called and they rectified the situation in quick order. Then the next day I noticed my account had gone up by another 60k!

You be the judge!

-Mark

What would you expect your children to do?

What would you expect your children to do?

may be a XMas free ticket present for their mother/father?

or, how about gifting them to a social/welfare institution?

[This message has been edited by Rudi (edited 11-06-2002).]

I have three examples of why you might want to just let it sit and see what the airline does in say, 4-6 weeks... Some might call this no good, but some may say it is best to take what you can get when it comes to you! Doing nothing is certainly not wrong here! Do THEY KNOW you even checked your statement?

just a thought, but here are my similar experiences...

1) Once I used Lending Tree once and signed on for 10k FF miles when getting my loan set up for a condo. I later switched lenders because the one I got assigned to me was actually no good and later I felt like I was being a bit taken by them anyway. I got a new lender and the new loan. Did not care at the time so much about the miles... I ended up getting the 10k posted anyway even though I never expected it. I also never looked into whether the new lender (not found using LendingTree.com) was affiliated or not and it is likely they were not. I have nothing bad to say about LendingTree.com but nothing good either... That is up to you all. FOr me, it did no good. BUT I did not press the issue on my newly added miles, nor did I do much of anything regarding my FF acct and they have remained in their for more than 1 year... I actually just reached 25k award level and may use it some day. If not, well, that acct was low anyway so whatever. I have other miles in the programs I like better anyhow.

Should I tell the airline? I dunno. In my case, no. They make so many mistakes, cant find some of their own marketing promos, and have links to bogus, no-longer-in-use sites or deals, I guess one hand kind of washes the other. It has also happened to me a few times that, using MCI partners for example, I got extra miles or got credits back on the LD useage but was even told that the miles could probably stay in my FF accts.

2) I once got a ticket refund of a $200 check from AA and then I got it again in the mail the next week! So, TWICE--a CHECK from the same problem! I called them to tell them about this and the CS lady there put me on hold and came back and said, and I quote: "Thank you sir for bringing this to our attention and being honest. Due to that, and the fact that it is actually harder for us to put the money back into our systems, you may keep it!" I did, of course. I was living overseas at the time and had already put a lot into mailings, faxings, copies and LD calls anyway.

3) Years ago, in college, a friend of mine saw someone trying to rob the pizza man when he was delivering some large pies to our dorm. My friend wanted to help out and so he called the police on the guy who got caught. The police thanked my friend but then, EVERY TIME something happened in that dorm, the cops would call my friend and sometimes, if there was a similiar prank or crime, they would put HIM on the suspect list and he would get woken up or bothered all the time! So much for sneaking beers on campus for him after that! Of course, this is not normal, but when you are in college and you like fun (not steeling) you kinda dont want to know or deal with the police...) The example, however, shows that sometimes, once you open your mouth, you are now on the spot a lot more anyway!


My advise would be to do nothing for the while. Maybe they will go away on their own. If this was money, and this was about your bank or your employer, I would totally tell them and give it back. And these days, being no longer in school, I would also tell cops if I saw a crime but I am certainly no tattle-tale! These are miles. They have only a value to you when you can actually use them and by gosh, that's hard enough to do! Reap and fly, my friend! Let us know some day though what took place.

My question is: what would you do if they had accidently debited 60K from your account?

As much as I sometimes think of the airlines as the "enemy", I'd probably have a hard time ethically keeping the miles. To me, this is almost like finding money when you *know* who it belongs to, but you know they won't come and ask YOU if you've seen it.

To me this is different from "working the system". Airlines use the "system" to jam us up, and we sometimes use it to jam them back. Both adversaries recognize that there is a game to be played regarding airfares, miles, status, upgrades, etc. - may the best man win. But I have a hard time using that adversarial relationship to justify taking something because of an error. Doing nothing and playing dumb doesn't make it any better.

They will realize their mistake sooner or later. I don't check my miles very often and there has been situations like this and by the time I see it it has already been corrected several weeks after the mistake was made.

Both of the last replies after my first long one are very good ones indeed. This is an excellent debate.

Yet, I do suppose it has to do with the HIGH AMOUNT of miles we are talking about here.

It is not money, but that does not make it NOT the same kind of thing/thinking.

However, it is a large amount... And yes, I suppose if they accidentally took my miles of that magnitude, or if someone FOUND my money I had lost, or whatever, I would be inclined to wonder where they went. But in here, because they ARE miles, we all need to remember something:

Right now at least, ALLLLL these miles we speak of out there are INVENTED and credited or debited by no standards or means like money or even inventory of any goods that exist elsewhere. They are fake currency in all senses of the word. Thus, this could be the exception to any other moralistic rules... the apple in Eden, the one margin of error in an otherwise harmonius attempt at some final judgement that you NEVER took advantage of a good thing in your favor...

Miles are little buggers that I think of as just not fitting the norm. The airlines make them up and practically any agent can create and generate, and debit any miles in your account and at any time. I suppose they only have a rather thin line of "honor system" type thinking to go by that prevents them from just changing it all on a whim--and yet we have all seen that happen too!

The only reference I know of that miles have a REAL value standard of any kind is when you have to buy some (roughly $27 per 1000 has become the norm) or when an airline like Continental once let people transfer the miles off one act into thier own and VS. by paying something like $5 per every so many hundred (back in the spring?). This could essentially "zero out" a person's acct (I did this using my wife's and my accts so that she now had 35k but mine had 0, which is one free ticket to the Caribean as opposed to two people having two FF accts with some useless amounts each in them).

The airline could now argue that it trimed some form of revenue, perhaps, or slimmed down its FF base size and could also report that people USED AWARDS or MILES which may have made them look cool to all those who invest or want to pick a program that sounded solid compared to the rest.

Miles are not real. They have no paper or even numeric status, other than what we have all come to aspire to. 60,000 miles = 60,000 what? Today that is a free first class ticket to one place and tomorrow, with no reference to laws of money or exchange rates in any country I know of, that figure could be worth one free ticket to nothing! It might get you an Amazon.com gift certificate one day, for all we know! I do not mean to be a cynic, but in my opinion, they do not even exist until or unless you mention them to the airline. Once you do redeem them, if you ever get to, they are gone anyhow. Will the flight have its own new troubles that made it tolerable because at least you got it for free (plus fees to change, redeposit, upgrade, not use, change airports or the like?) They have no held-on value... They are hype-inventions that you and I and millions of other rely on and self-create (and hopefully use) and we are in a great period in our lives where they now exist for the taking and so we take em.

I still say that you dont have to admit you know that you have them just yet. Wait and see in like 6 weeks. Then make the call. I suppose this one is to each his/her own. I dont know, for example, if I should really transfer 5000 UAL miles to HHilton just so I can now get tons of new junk mail and spam from partner stuff from joining up yet another thing (the hotel chain and its points program) and if this will save me anything in the long run. I probably will but I guess its a good thing I am using UAL miles to transfer into them and not AA ones. Somehow, though the two airlines are very similar in many ways, one gives you 10k HH points for that conversion and the other gives you only 5k. Gee, I wish I had an extra few thou miles laying around to justify the loss just for having been in the right place (or program) at the right time! You were when you got that error posted to yourself!

Take it... wax on, wax off!
(BTW, in a marathon, I did not cheat. I earned all 26.2 and took the time they gave me, but that is a bit different I think.)

Your decision is made more difficult by the fact that the points only have value if redeemed for a perishable commodity--an airline seat. While that seat might be valued by some at several hundred dollars, it is not the same thing as several hundred dollars.

Also, to the airline, it has an incremental cost of only a few dollars or pennies, judging by their financial disclosures to their investors. (lets talk about ethics). In fact, some people consider the FF programs an asset, although I think that is a stretch.

I believe its the huge disparity in value--the fact that the points are potentially worth hundreds to you and worth peanuts to the airline--that cause these problems and why the airlines are often careless in administering their programs. They certainly don't leave hundred dollar bills lying around.



[This message has been edited by LemonThrower (edited 11-06-2002).]

I'm of the opinion that if I have to keep it hidden from anyone then it's most likely something I shouldn't be doing.

Your point about the airlines changing their systems is a very good one that I hadn't really thought about. I still don't think two wrongs make a right, but when I earn miles thinking that 100,000 of them will get two of us to Hawaii in first class, and later find out that it will take 150,000: that's not much different than if they just flat out took miles out of my account. If we truly are equal combatants in this battle that is flying from point A to point B (and we all know it *is* a battle), then one could argue that seizing 60,000 extra miles is simply a small win to be considered among an endless string of wins and losses.

In a way, it's sad that we think of it this way. If my local taco stand gave me $10 too much change, I wouldn't think twice about pointing it out. Of course, if my local taco stand charged some people 99 cents and others $15 for a taco, or if they made some people wait 30 seconds and others 30 minutes for a taco, or if they promised you every 10th taco free and then changed it to every 20th right after you finished eating your 9th taco....I just might feel differently.

We can agree on one thing: it's a great debate!