I just got a judgment entered against me in a business dispute. The opposing party asked for, and recieved a judgment including administrative authority over my miles.

Do you know the airlines poicies regading compliance with this? Is there existingcase law supporting programs positions that they are not property and therefore not subject to judgment?

Any help pointing me in the right direction would be appreciated. You may look up my e-mail address and use it if you like.

I'm not Randy, so forgive me for butting in.

And I don't actually know the answer to your question, but I have some pretty good guesses.

* A court could certainly issue an injunction against you using your miles.

* Several airline programs allow employees to assign rights to their accounts to their employer.

* Miles aren't considered an individual's property and certainly aren't transferable without the consent of the airline.

* I imagine that a judgment in this case could give someone the right to direct YOU but not to direct the airline. It's unlikely that the airline would go along with a court assigning your miles to someone else.

How is this supposed to work? You're supposed to issue awards in someone else's name? Check with the airline to see if it's kosher with them. It may very well be a violation of the program's terms and conditions. I don't think the court can order you to do that.

Did the judgment center around conduct related to your miles? If so, you might not want to be contacting the airline. But if not, it would be worth getting correspondence from them explaining that they will not permit you to comply with the order.

Were the airline t&c's introduced to the court? Were you represented by an attorney?

Also, since the IRS doesn't value miles, it seems hard to imagine a court valuing miles as value in a judgment.

Sorry about the random nature of these thoughts. Obviously I don't have any specifics to work off of, so I'm just sharing the things that occur to me.

Regards,
Gary

I've heard of miles being disposed of through QDROs in divorce cases, might want to look at any case law in your state in that subject.

I think I can help you, simply contact me by email.

The legal arguement which acrually I have put forth for others as an "expert witness" is that since the IRS tax code currently has no provisions for reporting such miles as they are awarded to members of these programs and has in public statements said that such reporting has no tax consequences or interest to tehm, that the miles have no reasonable "value" as determined by taxable or other income since both the IRS in their tax reporting statues as well as "donation value" us related to tax status (re: property value). Any applied value is really in the minds of members, not in the minds of those that are accountable for establishing value of property or income.

One more item from above:
gleff is correct. The miles actually aren't of your property (program fine print....) so the court could not issue any order against them to you, only an airline and airlines have shown in the past to distain anyone's attempt to "own" the miles of members.

Interesting case, one i think i'd like to hear more of.

if miles really would be judged to have no value ... then why would one object to have taken them away ... ?

I believe this is a case of "tax valuation" vs. actual value of use.

FF miles are owned by the airlines. I don't understand how there could be a judgment against them and also I don't understand how they could be taxed. They don't belong to the FF account holder.