tom911

What advance arrangements do you make if the buyer is denied boarding at the gate by using your miles, or even worse, is denied boarding in a foreign country on the way back to the U.S.? Do you buy him/her a revenue ticket then?

There's actually a running thread on the UA forum about account audits for fraudulent activity, as well as a couple other related threads. Sometimes the airlines do find out about these things. Maybe you've just been lucky so far.

MP Audits - Recent Experiences?? [Merged Threads]

Account Audit

My account on audit, what???

The Mileage Plus Audit

lin821

tom911, I think you meant to say, the "buyer."

Or if there's a broker (i.e. one of the sites OP had referenced) in between, "the passenger."

The seller will be OP.

tom911

Well, they do allow you to book tickets in whatever name you want, be it a family member, coworker, or friend. The difference is that selling miles is a business to the airline, and it helps their bottom line. When you sell miles you're a competitor and they don't get one cent off your transaction.

I remember one thread here on FT where a generous FTer gave a coworkers relative an award ticket to a wedding in Australia. The airline denied her boarding at the gate because she did not have enough information about the person the miles were from. We have examples all over FT how these "deals" unravel.
Award Ticket Fraud?

tom911

Good catch. Still jet lagged from coming home from London tonight.

lin821

I guess you should talk to PTravel about jet lag.

flyerd

Tom trust me I get your point, I know this, that is why I use companies like selling miles and flyhub, because they protect both parties and make sure the buyer is taken care of. With flyhub I actually get the ticket issued in the buyer's name and not sell the miles per say. Not sure how they'd figure that money was involved in the transaction. Airlines don't mind when frequent flyers give tickets away using miles, they only have a problem with this if the frequent flyer is making money in the process. But I guess should there be an audit, I suppose the buyer could call flyhub and they would resolve it. At least that's what their guarantee claims, well, not sure about the exact terms, I haven't read it. But then again this has not yet happened to me, and I hope it never does, clearly I sell my miles to help those who need it most, sure I make a few bucks, but I could live without, I have a job that pays me well.

I think for me it's more than that though, for me it's about something I feel strongly about. I meant it when I say I hope some greedy lawyer out there is already putting together some sort of class action lawsuit against the airlines. Someone needs to do this. Turn the table on them, they should get sued. Trust me, someone will someday. This just isn't right or fair, they've gotten away with this for far too long. Oh and by the way, have you tried getting a ticket issued with your miles recently? a lesson in frustration, a highway robbery, and just another reason why I reserve the right to sell those miles.

super-mileage-fan

The BBB certificate on SellingMiles.com is expired.

If you believe in freedom of contract, as I do, there is nothing immoral about the airline policies preventing selling miles (if you believe that the airlines operate in a free market).

That doesn't mean I like the policies of the airlines. However, the talk about a class action suit against the airlines for the general no-sell policy is absurd. Do you really believe that we should reform this struggling industry through torts?

Sure, Congress could pass a law stating that airlines must allow future mileage accrued to be fungible. However, that would result in massive devaluations (because they would adjust the redemption levels and rules). Congress would probably tax miles earned while they are at.

flyerd

Yeah you're probably right

flyerd

Tom, I didn't catch that until now. Believe it or not I actually read buyer. I need to go to bed :- )

tom911

Class action for what, though? I don't have any problem using my miles and have used about 450,000 miles just this year. What are you hoping to gain from litigation? The ability to sell your miles? I just don't think that's going to happen with the terms and conditions written as they are. It puts you in competition with the airlines, then, for selling seats, and they don't even get a commission off your sales. Why would they want to sign off on that?

lin821

I've never heard of those broker websites you use, so I have no idea how legit they are and how much protection they provide to sellers like you when things DO happen. In your flyhub example, you ARE selling miles per se. Issuing the tickets in the buyer's name (or not) is not the point.

Like I said, you just haven't got caught. Just read the threads tom911 had highlighted. Then calculate the risk you are willing to take (meaning losing all the banked miles in your accounts when the airlines catch you).

Depending on where you park your miles, miles can be more than just miles.

Some FFPs allow redemptions as hotel stays/points. Some allows "gifting", "sharing" or "transfer" (processing fees involved). Most of the FFPs that I know of do allow the miles to be used by someone other than yourself. Give free tickets to fly your families, in-laws (if you don't hate them ), and friends! You just have to follow their rules and restrictions.

Even better, if after giving free tickets to your loved ones and deserving co-workers, you still have plenty to give, quite a few charities accepts miles donation as well.

If you don't feel like giving, well, I normally don't recommend this site but you can check out Points.com. As far as I know, Points is the only site that has the agreement/partnership with a number of airlines, which makes "selling" your miles via them legit.

One "caviar": Points has horrible redemption/exchange rates. You can't get away with the fees airlines impose on miles transfers/gifting/trading (GPX). I always say they are simple ripoffs.

If you want to read more about Points, here are two example threads:

Customer service at Points.com

Points.com / Global Points Exchange????

flyerd

Thanks, I'll definitely check them out, especially if they have a deal with airlines. What's the difference between points.com them and loyaltymatch.com? Anyone knows?

powlan

Welcome to flyertalk flynerd. I think that if you search the posts you will find that the overwhelming number of us don't think it's a good idea to sell miles or points. In fact we think that it's a bad idea. Not the least of which is the fact that the airlines will close our accounts and take our miles. That goes for the sales of SWUs and upgrades. I notice that you joined only last week, and will all due respect, try to listen to what the warriors (not me) are saying.

Helena Handbaskets

Here are three ways. I bet there are more.

1. Airline revenue protection dept. poses as a buyer on the exchange site and buys an award purchased with your miles. The airline now knows that money was paid for the miles, and they can look up the account used to purchase the award, because they know which award is the one bought with cash.

2. Airline knows a particular passenger is flying on an award purchsed with miles not from his own account. Using that as a criterion, they challenge the passenger upon boarding, requiring information about the identity of the donor. "Just to confirm that everything is legitimate, sir... you understand." When an unsatisfactory response ensues, and if enough suspicions are aroused, the airline may threaten to deny boarding. They may offer to allow the passenger to fly in return for a full, verifiable disclosure of the source of the miles. At this point, if the passenger confesses that the award was purchased, it doesn't even matter whether he discloses the site used to broker the deal. At that point the airline once again knows which award was sold for cash, and can easily determine which account the miles came from.

3. I believe I read here on FT that the airlines and hotels have used their trademark rights to force eBay to disclose buyer and seller identification. Even if that's not the case, whatever they've done with eBay should also be doable with the brokerages you use. The fact that they evidently have not may mean that you're safe from this avenue of concern unless the business through any of these brokers gets to be significant to make it worth the legal fees. Of course, at that point a broker like this would simply be out of business and wouldn'y routinely provide identification info to the airlines like eBay does. But if the airlines could get a ruling of past trademark infringement, the broker might very well have a judgment to pay, in which case the airline might be able to negotiate for the disclosure of buyer and seller identities. Even if the seller has registered with the broker using a false identity, the account number from which the miles were taken cannot be faked.

sbm12

Well, points.com has arranged partnerships with the airlines and the other programs. The others are just brokering deals between individuals. The guy from LM tries to justify his program here but hasn't answered the very direct question I posed about their relationship with the carriers.