Hmmm. I think I will let the above just speak for itself and ask many of you who among your family members does that sound like.

But seriously, if you don't like what the airlines are doing to maximize their profits -- the last time I looked they were in business to make themselves $$ and not to service us FFers -- then take an alternative mode of transportation!

Nevertheless, everyone will do what their heart and ethical convictions tell them to do regardless of anyone's proselytizing.

I do not know where you have been for the time that you have posted thousands of times on this board, but I respectfully direct you to the following citation:



http://www.flyertalk.com/rules.shtml

Now, I truly hope the above ends both this debate and this thread.

AA will give you 500 mi, even on your PL or Hotwire ticket, for using the automated check-in kiosk.

But I was burned by HW, and would never use PL except for hotels and cars. I always use PL for hotels and cars, if you don't use PL for rent-a-cars you will get hit with 6 different surcharges that PL users need never worry about.

Giving a hotel or rent-a-car co. your guest or FF# is not about fraud. It is about providing the co. with valuable marketing information, even though management is too dumb to listen: Hey! Here I am, a frequent traveler, a frequent guest in your hotel, the kind of customer whose business you should value, and I have to use PL to get a decent price on your $%@# room!! I won't pay your inflated prices just to get whatever lame benefit you are giving to frequent guests who spend OPM!! Just don't stick me in the Priceline room, please!!

Most of the time the hotel clerk will dutifully enter the #, and you may well receive a better bed or location, and you in all probability won't be housed in the Priceline room.

What are the surcharges on auto rentals that you save by using priceline. I think all the airport fees and such are still added in. Did I miss something. When I try to use frequent point programs with priceline rooms they usually refuse to give the hotel points. Wyndham doesnt let you get the "preferred" program either.

Since Priceline specifically indicates that elite perks are excluded on Priceline tickets, how is this any different than trying to get miles for your ticket, which are also specificially excluded? In both cases you are looking for something of value when you are not entitled to that value.

[This message has been edited by SRQ Guy (edited 05-20-2003).]

a lot of people here have felt free to pass judgement on those who ask for miles they feel one is not entitled to... anyone ever get miles credited by accident, and then ask the airline to reverse that "error?" ... just curious where the grey areas end...

As a customer, I definitely feel the pull of an adversarial relationship with the airlines. After all, those guys consider $100 change fees and $40 fuel surcharges fair. They're definitely not restrained by conscience in doing those and other monopolistic "what the market will bear" moves, believing that any situation where the customer can take-it-or-leave-it is "the market" and thus exempt from ethics or greed considerations.

Which isn't to say there aren't situations where people are going too far on trying to get miles. It's just to say that airlines (and many other big businesses) have set a certain tone by their own behavior. With that in mind, I can refrain from or even mildly condemn some of what I see, but I can't get too far up on my high horse about it.

Just ask yourself, "What would William Bennett do?"


[This message has been edited by RustyC (edited 05-24-2003).]