Negative balace in frequent flyer/hotel program
 

I did a search, but found nothing.

I am curious, if anyone has any experiences with obtaining a negative balance in their hotel or frequent flier account (whether its due to - credits, returning items on your CC, etc..).

Would love to hear what has happened to you? I have searched the particular program I am inquiring about and have found nothing in their T+C, Legal, About etc..

Umm... what are you expecting to happen? :confused: I'd expect a negative balance to be treated the same as a zero balance, and I really doubt they'll start demanding money for you to compensate...

Please continue to follow this thread in the FT MilesBuzz Forum.
Thanks...
Obscure2k
TravelBuzz Moderator

Congratulations! :D

I would use up my miles and have a negative balace IF I knew how to do it.

Then, maybe I could get a bailout? @:-)

I am at least as deserving as Citibank et al. :o

AA used to let people go negative, up to -500 miles.

I am not LH elite, but they seem to have / had a perk where people could go very, very negative (tens of thousands of miles). I think they actually demand people after a certain amount of time to settle their account.

Last month, I had negative net charges on my NW US Bank visa card. They said they would post negative miles that month. That would be another means of potentially getting a negative balance. It turns out they didn't; I assume I won't get miles posted until I earn back that quantity.

Mine isn't a small amount, its about 400 dollars worth of points. I didn't do this intentionally at all, and i don't want to get into any legal issues. I was just wondering if this has happened to others, so I can have some experiences to draw upon if (when) I get contacted.

With AmEx MR you can borrow against future earning and if you haven't caught up a year later you have to pay for the points you borrowed. The rate is somewhere around 2.5 cents/point, which isn't horribly unreasonable for buying points.

I'd say that $400 worth of points really isn't too big a deal. Do you have plans to replenish the account or were you planning on taking the points and closing the account? As long as you replenish the account in a reasonable amount of time you'll probably be OK.

I actually redeemed all the points as I was getting out of the program. Had a major corporate purchase on my credit card that was returned 75 days later.
I have no plans to use/replenish this account again.

Years ago, there was a glitch in the Amex systems where at the end of every statement, miles would post for purchases - then if you had credits apply to your account and you then waited a couple of months before touching the card again, them racked up a lot of purchases once more, you would get more points show up on your FF account. I dont have an Amex so unsure whether this still applies...

Last year when a NWA promo posted 20,000 miles to my account, I quickly used it for an award to Europe. NW had problems posting miles to other accounts, so they removed everyones promo miles for a day or two to fix the problem. For that day I was at -19000 miles.

If it were on a Worldperks/NW credit card, I know from personal experience that NW wouldn't credit any more miles to your FFP until you "repay" the difference in miles. In other words, if the refund is $1000 that results in -$400. You'll have to make $401 more charges in the future before you get your next 1 mile credited to Worldperks account.

Now NW account is merging with DL. Not sure how this negative balance would be handled over to Skymiles though.

About 2 years ago, US Airways had a glitch that allowed negative balances. I was burning some miles for magazine and ordered some. I ordered 1 too many and got a negative balance.:eek: I sort of paid them back when I left a magazine on a US flight. :D

AA allowed a miniscule negative balance (47 miles?) when a relative of mine redeemed an award. However, they got paid back with future flights....and an appreciative relative.

Had CitiAadvantage card a year or so ago. A $5000. item was returned about 4 months after purchase. I was told AA didn't take back the miles but would not issue more credit card miles until I exceeded $5000 in new purchases. A reasonable approach in my opinion.

I have a negative -4,000 miles US Airways balance right now.

I had 26,000 miles. I redeemed a ticket on UA SFO-Hawaii. They should have charged me 35,000, however, they only charged me 25,000 (my guess: Indian call center agent did not understand the destination, which is a smaller airport, was in Hawaii).

Later there was a flight change and I had to have the ticket reissued. The USA call center handled. They didn't say anything to me, but when the ticket was reissued my account showed a redeposit for 25,000 and an issuance for 35,000. This left me with negative -4,000. I flew the flights and everything went fine. The negative balance has persisted for over six months. I am "done" with US Air so this doesn't bother me.

It's possible with Miles and More, but: (read this story)

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...ft-thread.html