Selling miles on eBay...is it over?
 

Hello all. I'm not sure if this is the right place to discuss this, but I will fire away anyway. :) It's getting harder and harder to sell FF Miles in the form of coupons on eBay. (Kellogg's, Dannon, Wendy's, Cinemark) They just started shutting down my auctions saying that I can only list one coupon per month. I have been selling for almost a year now without any trouble until a few weeks ago. After speaking with the "Travel Guru" she informed me that I could continue to sell, but only 1 auction per month because I'm not a licensed travel agent. I guess I don't understand why they will allow me to sell 1 coupon and not more? Is there another auction site, website, or outlet to sell miles? Thanks in advance.

NWA-DTW

ps My miles were from the Dannon Water Promotion.

EBAY info on this subject is at
http://pages.ebay.com/buy/guides/tra...2:LISTINGS:1#3

The reason behind this is consumer protection.

You can advertise for free on Craiglist. I see a lot of posts under the "tickets" section. Go to www.craigslist.org. This will take you to the SF Bay area site. You can then select your area's site. Or you could try something like seattle.craigslist.org to go there directly (assuming you are in the Seattle area)

NWA-DTW: I dug up an old thread that may have some relevant info for you: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...light=martinez

Pay close attention to Post #4 from that thread, if you get an email from that Eden Martinez guy you are hosed as any miles in your AA account will be frozen. You may ask: How will AA figure out who I am? The answer is easy - your friends at Ebay will drop a dime on you in a heartbeat! That's right - they will provide AA with your personal Ebay account info. (For whatever it's worth unless if any laws are being broken - and although selling mileage-related items may be against program rules to the best of my knowledge it IS NOT against any laws - in my opinion Ebay should never ever give their users' personal info out to third parties)

if AA miles stay away from Ebay.

OK, I'm hooked...what is the Dannon Water Promotion, and how were you doing this? I'm always up for a "side business"?!?!

See http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...ghlight=dannon

In short these specially-marked packages of water can sometimes be found on sale 3 for $8 (300 total AA miles) meaning that for a cost $26.67 - plus tax - you can get 1000 miles worth of Dannon certificates. As hard as it may be to believe folks have typically been paying the better part of $40 per 1000 miles for the AA certs on ebay, so if you are a seller you can pocket a bit of a profit and also have a long-term supply of water to drink - or if you are really resourceful you could then donate the bottled water to charity and possibly take a tax write-off for the donated items.

Typical Ebay Dannon auction
 

See http://cgi.ebay.com/1000-American-Ai...QQcmdZViewItem

There is a sucker born each day huh? WOW...I might go buy some Dannon water today! :-)
Anyone know if this promotion is still going on?

This guy bought A THOUSAND CASES!
 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=6592199940

Pay close attention to the sentence in his item description that starts with, "I have upwards of..."

The promo is still going on, as I understand it there are two potential stumbling blocks: 1) finding the water priced at a good price (the 3 for $8 sale price is the exception rather than the rule, my local Kroger typically has the specially-marked Dannon BUT it priced at something like $5.49 each, i.e. not worth it), and 2) in some parts of the country it is difficult/impossible to find the specially marked packages of Dannon

Thanks
 

Thanks for all the replies guys. I never received an email from Eden Martinez or anyone else from AA regarding the selling of AA Miles. I actually live in NWA country (hence my username) so I don't fly American much and actually only have a few hundred miles in my account. It's possible that some of the people that bought miles from me did, but I never heard about it. Maybe the sale of coupons is frowned upon but tolerated?

The best price I found for the Dannon water was $2.47 per case. I was able to buy several thousand at that price. I had pallets of water arriving weekly on a semi. A friend and myself could load up about 100 cases at a time in a Suburban. It became a pet project to do in our free time. I donated some of it to the Red Cross, but most of it was resold (minus the coupon) for $1.50-$2.00 per case. Word travels fast when you have brand name water at $.10 a bottle. Catering companies were my biggest customers. Getting rid of the water has been easier than selling the coupons.

Thanks for the craigslist suggestion. I will definitely look into that. I know that some of the Wendy's and Cinemark coupons ended up there. Craigslist just doesn't have the exposure that eBay does.

I looked into doing this with the AA cereal boxes a couple years ago. I figured the following math equation:

- 1,000 boxes of cereal @ $2/box (on sale at local store)= $2,000
- Donate boxes to local food bank for tax deduction (say $500 deduction). I had even called a local food bank and they confirmed they would take the boxes with the coupon cut, as long as the food was untouched

So for a $1,500 "purchase", I'd have enough miles for an international business class ticket (value $5,000-$8,000).

I even called Kellogg's (who's HQ I live about 2 hours from) to see if they would sell direct, which they would not).

Unfortunately, my wife was less than supportive, and reminded me of the time and opportunity cost of buying, cutting certs, filling out certs and storing 1,000 boxes.

Dave,

You weren't thinking big enough! After cutting out the certificate you could've sold them on eBay for $3-$5 per. Your $1500 investment turns into a $3000-$4000 profit. That's better than any ticket in my opinion. :) The best part is that you don't have to fill out the certs!

Just a question for reference when I need water this summer in Montana.
How many ounces are the Dannon Bottles?

Thanks!
JudyJFLA

16.9 ounce bottles. You will find the promotion on specially marked 15 packs. Walgreens is probably the best place to find them.

NWA-DTW