If I am not awarded all the miles I am entitled to, I call the airline to give me proper credit. But is it my responsibility to inform the airline if there are too many miles for one reason or another or is that the responsibility of the airline. If a cashier gives me too much change, I give back what is not mine. Does that apply to miles. What about all the time it takes to get miles that are owed. There is no compensation for the time wasted by the airlines's mistake. Your thoughts?

It's isn't polite to stare directly at the gift horse's mouth. It makes him self-conscious.

How many miles are we talking about here? If it's just like 1000 miles, ask yourself if the cost to the airline for awarding them to you (the liability they carry on their balance sheet for FF miles) outweighs the transactional/time cost of you speaking to three CSRs and two supervisors for an hour to get the mistake miles pulled from your account.

If you feel truly guilt ridden about keeping a mileage windfall, there are a number of great charities out there that accept mileage donations. Trying to work it out giving them back to the airline is going to ultimately get filed into the "no good deed goes unpunished" bin, IMHO.

Besides, knowing most airlines, it won't be long before they make you feel like they should owe you some miles in compensation for something... Maybe you should just consider it an advance against the next nasty screw up?

peace,
~Ben~

You stated that if cashier gives you too much change, you give them back. If the cashier short changes you, I'm sure you'd ask for proper amount. Do you ask for compensation for time wasted from the grocery store cashier too?

I'd do what you are comfortable with. I'm sure you can determine your own moral boundaries, and might prefer that than one set by others.

The heck with that! Where better than to establish one's own moral paradigms than by seeking advice from strangers on an anonymous internet bulletin board?

Enjoy the miles and don't worry about it. At the end of the day, the cashier makes up his drawer shortage out of their own pocket. At the end of the day, the institution won't even know what you are trying to accomplish: returning unwanted mileage awards. Aye Yi Yi!

not too long ago, i discovered a sudden influx of about 56k miles/points (i forget which program). the problem obviously wasn't a case of too many miles, but of someone else's. a quick email to the program and the points disappeared from my account (with any luck, they got where they needed to go).

in contrast, last year delta had a unique partners promotion, and you were eligible for bonuses depending on how many partners you utilized. i undisputably fell short of the threshold, but i still got the bonus (something like 5k). did i try to send them back? no way! delta (and all other ff programs) exercises such exclusive control over their programs, with so many ambiguities, that i consider the terms and conditions of any promotion to be the bare minimum. i.e., if i meet the criteria, then i insist on my miles, even if there are unpublished criteria or the rules are open to legitimate interpretation. but if i don't meet the published criteria, but get the miles anyway, i chalk it up to unpublished criteria.

so the analogy to the cashier is a poor one, because you both know exactly how much change you're supposed to get. a better case would be trying to use an expired coupon - perfectly fair, because some stores still accept them.

heck no, i'm not giving them back, although if its a significant sum, i might call when they take them back to see what happened but once it is clear that I shouldn't have gotten them I wouldn't push it.. but I'm not going to be the first to let them know.. heck no

This says a lot of what kind of person you are or more accurately, the type of person you are not. Loser.

You have no right to keep the miles if they were awarded to you in error. You also have no right to give them to charity, as another suggested, because you do not rightfully own them nor are you entitled to them per the T&Cs.

That being said, I agree that the mileage T&Cs are so convoluted that it would be difficult to know if the miles were really awarded in error. I would write a quick email to the airline if I was sure the miles were awarded in error.

OK - Devil's advocate:

Where do rights and ownership come into it? Don't the airlines FF programs T&Cs maintain that they own all miles and accounts and the airline has the right to do as they please when they please? As much as we on FT might like to think of it that way, these aren't bank accounts. If an extra $50k showed up in my bank account in error and I spent it, I'd be legally liable to repay the money. If an extra 50k in miles showed up in my FF account and I blew it on a RT to Europe and the airline didn't come across the mistake until after I'd completed travel, tough luck for them. Most people out there have no idea what their FF mileage balances even are.

I've personally had instances where 15k miles have suddenly appeared in my account as compensation for a bad mx delay weeks previous. I didn't request compensation and they didn't tell me they were giving me any -- the miles just showed up. Sometimes it happens (twice to me, at least).

Cancel that devil's advocate bit up above -- I convinced myself.

peace,
~Ben~

Morality is very much a personal thing. That said, if you're thinking about it enough to post on a forum to ask if it is moral, then to you it likely is not.

they will figure it out eventually

If you have to ask I think you already know your answer.

I have called an airline before and pointed out an error in my favor - twice. Once they quickly corrected the error and once they noted that it was too much bother and I could just keep them. I felt better doing it.

Those were for flat-out errors. When they do something dumb, like US publishing 5 different "double miles" codes and allowing you to sign up for all of them, I don't feel bad using the defined rules to my benefit.

seoulmanjr made a good point, that miles should not be equated to money. Even as they are sold by each program, what they can buy is controlled solely by the programs. If the programs were to give notice that the miles will be worth nothing, we have no recourse. Thus this may support the argument that keeping miles is not as immoral as keeping money.

Of course this doesn't mean it isn't against the spirit of the law in your mind, only that you can rationalize it. I've rationalized away plenty of behavior back in my day, hah hah hah, so I know why this may trouble you.

Interesting point, but I think it is mostly semantic. No, we never "own" the miles, but we become "entitled" to them upon the occurrence of certain events, per the T&Cs. So, with that clarification, I think my point still stands.