I have a coworker who is doing a trip to Europe next month. He very rarely flies, is not enrolled in any FF program, and has no plans to do so. Does it raise any red flags if I were to give him my FF number and have the miles for his trip credited to me? I don't know if they try to match up names on the tickets vs. names enrolled in the program.

(The flight is a SLC-NCE on DL, if it matters.)

From SkyMiles Membership Rules & Conditions:

[This message has been edited by Patron (edited Mar 05, 2004).]

you take a very great risk - and so does the passenger. Not only do check-in-staff first, mileage programs later (automatically) check if the names on the ticket fit the ff-program name - in these anti-terrorst-fight-days immigration (US immigration in the first place) now have (electronically) access to the passengers files with the incoming airline (showing all these informations like names, age, how you paid for the ticket, your flight patterns by having access to your frequent-flier history, etc. etc.).

Don't do it!

If the names of the tickted person and the FF number don't match, you will not get miles for the flight. They will just assume you indicated the wrong FF number.

I doubt if anyone will give you trouble, but any airline with a FF programme checks the names.

Waste of time!

Regards Oliver

find out if the airline he flies has any current sign up promos. For example, my wife who just got Premier on United just got something in the mail where, if she gets people to join and fly on certain flights, they get whatever miles but SHE gets like 5000 bonus!

Then ask your co-worker to let you sign him up and ask him what kind of beer he likes to drink.

(or get him to bring some back from europe for you and drink it with him)

Other than that, I guess yeah, the above posts sure do prove that the old days are gone. (Way back when, I recall signing up for a spring break trip to Ft Lauderdale in college and they booked all of our names under fake people... They had simply already booked these cheap flights in other people's names knowing they coudl resell the tickets later on to us new freshmen for a great rate but still a mark up now that the price was higher since it was closer to party time!)

Hope that helps. It's OK to ask your question but somehow they'd find a way to bag you for something and that would suck. Just saying the wrong thing in airports or having to do with flying can get you marked for life, it seems! What a shame. I bet that concept carries over into other life in our near future... Why, in today's crazed world I wouldnt even go 'round bashing the president without expecting to later lose my job over it--somehow! ha ha ha

MM
(no, it is not politics now)

We once had a situation where we were flying quite a lot and not receiving any miles. Upon thorough investigation, it was discovered that the airline had, in some mysterious fashion, re-assigned our number to another person. Therefore, the miles were accruing into a holding space for miles flown by a person that doesn't "name-match" the account number listed upon their itinerary.

Needless to say, this was before we were Flyer Talk Junkies who checked our account obsessivly.

The only time I have seen this work is when a grandfather/father/son all had the same name and were able to pool miles. I also know of a couple of identical twin cases where the real frequent flyer "loaned" his/her ID to his/her twin-sib to garner the miles for the twin's random flights.

Just a nuts idea with many pitfalls for you and the other passenger. Don't go there!

OK, your job as a loyal FTer is to explain to him why he should enroll as a frequent flyer even if he rarely flies!

(I once sat next to a guy who did at least one international trip a year and a few domestics who had never enrolled in any frequent flyer program. I was flabbergasted!)

Even worse: I know a guy who flies the cattle car (WN) at least 6-7 times a year and doesn't collect those Rapid Rewards credits (or whatever they are called). I told him that he could EASILY log two free tickets a year with his flights and some moderate partner activity, but he just looks at me like I'm some sort of wierd mileage junkie. (Which, of course, I am.)

You are asking for big trouble there. It is not worth it. If it is an international flight, they should rack up a lot of miles. Then maybe they'll have enough for an upgrade or something. The awards can be transferred to family/friends.

I will chime in and say "stay clear"

My travel agent used my # on reservations for some flights in Europe for one of my employees and UA gave me the miles. They were BMI flts.

In the summer of 2000 I flew to London after I was just divorced. My passport and ticket had to be in my new name (I went back to my maiden name) but my DL Skymiles account still had my married name. I wasn't even able to put my DL number on the ticket, when I got back I had to write a letter to DL and send in all my flight info to get credit for the flights.

On domestic flights I was able to use my Skymiles # with my old name, but not the international ones and this was way back in 2000.

In the early days of FF programs (like 1980's and maybe very early 1990's) they did not name match the number in some cases. However programatically it is easy for a computer to match the name and number, and some systems will block the number going in if it does not match the name. I don't think you would be executed or hauled off to prison for doing this, but at the same time I don't think you would get the mileage credit in your Delta account. But weird things do sometimes happen as listed above. I would also take in to account your friend/co worker. If there is a discrepancy found on check in they may question this person, and they will probably let them go in the end, but it might shake up especially a non frequent flyer especially if they had a problem outside their own country. If your friend gets DL credit for this set of flights, and does something like switch long distance carriers, they might nearly have enough miles for a domestic trip which they could use or gift to someone else. For people that do not fly a lot, they really (perhaps more than we could imagine) appreciate even a coach domestic award. There are a lot of people that fly like evry 5 years and if you gave them a flight it could really make their day/week, etc.

[This message has been edited by jetsetter (edited Mar 06, 2004).]

When I was younger, my dad's job allowed us to fly in C around the world on (BA/UA/KLM/Air India/Pan Am/TWA) once every 2 years - We used to fly from DC to various places in Europe (LON/FRA/PAR/AMS)to DEL to various places in SE Asia (NRT/BKK/SIN) to LAX to DC - all in paid C - we did this probably about 7-10 times and the last time we did it, it was in paid F - my dad had an FF account for himself & it never occurred to him to set up one for the rest of the family til we did it in paid F.

The miles I could've had...



[This message has been edited by bhatnasx (edited Mar 06, 2004).]