Singapore Airlines stole my miles
 

I'm having a frustrating issue with Singapore Airlines, and would welcome any advice.

I flew from London to Brunei via Sinapore and back. At the time of my flights, I did not supply my Lufthansa Miles & More number (another star alliance member). But about two weeks after returning, I went to the Lufthansa site with my eticket number and boarding passes to claim the miles.

M&M checked these, and said that they couldn't give me the credit, because the miles were already allocated elsewhere.

So I contacted Singapore Airlines, who said that they had been allocated to my Nippon Airways account. This was a surprise to me, as I do not have a Nippon Airways account and have never had one! They said that I needed to contact Nippon Air to have them reverse it.

I contacted Nippon Airways, who said that the account had been setup online, and that someone had immediately claimed the miles using my eticket number. But they couldn't reverse it. Singapore Airlines had to do that.

So I contacted Singapore Airlines. After a long pause, they wrote and said that I should contact...Miles & More. I said that was unacceptable. They are now thinking again, but I'm not hopeful.

Clearly, someone at Singapore Airlines has sent a "friend" eticket numbers and unclaimed flights to that they could use them on third-party airlines. It looks and smells like fraud. But Singapore is not taking any responsibility and seems unwilling to act.

This is ridiculous. There has to be a way of reversing incorrect or fraudulent transactions. It is not like I'm trying to transfer miles between different accounts. The Nippon Air account is not mine.

Other than continuing to complain and play ping-pong across multiple programmes, any ideas on how to resolve this?

Welcome to FT, this sounds like either someone had access to your reservation who then added the FF # or there is an anomaly somewhere along the line. So you're responsible as to protect your info, ref number and ticket number etc, did you post the information online like instagram or FB? I think you are scrood!

And BTW, why would SQ do this? Who gave them the friends contact info?

"Clearly, someone at Singapore Airlines has sent a "friend" eticket numbers and unclaimed flights to that they could use them on third-party airlines. It looks and smells like fraud. But Singapore is not taking any responsibility and seems unwilling to act. "

Tell you you'll report it to the Singaporean police for an investigation into fraud and see if that motivates them to do something

Ha ha ha.............Singapore Police? :D

Which is why I always provide my FF# at check-in and double check to make sure that it is credited to the correct account.

I definitely didn't post it anywhere. The only sources possible are 1) SQ 2) my company, or 3) my company's travel agent. But 2 and 3 wouldn't have known that I hadn't supplied my number at check in (which is what I usually do).

I have a bad feeling that they are going to say that their systems don't allow miles to be reversed once allocated to another airline.

Oh, in answer to the first reply, I'm thinking that someone within SQ scanned the system to find cases where there were high-mileage flights that hadn't been credited to any account. They then gave the eticket number and my name to a friend, who claimed the miles.

That could be paranoia, but someone had to actively open a Nippon Air account, and file a claim using my eticket number. It wasn't a misallocation or computer error.

^^^ Thats what any frequent flier will do!

Yes it does sound like paranoia, I have been flying over 30 years and never have I ever had this issue. And btw, posting here will not help. Deal with the airline in writing and Twitter, reach out to the higher up's. Once it is resolved share the outcome on FT.

Outside from the constant "Nippon Air" mistake, my other problem here is...the guy who "stole" the miles would also have to have the same name.

James Smith can't simply claim the miles for Brenda Davidson. Otherwise one member from a family could retroactively claim all miles for a family trip flown. Or a company could claim all the miles for all of it's employee's flying.

I can't say I have a solution here, it sounds like there was some glitch, but I do like a good wild goose chase with accusations of theft thrown in the mix.

So the flight was booked through a human being at your company's travel agent, and you didn't provide a frequent flyer number at the time of booking?

I think a good possibility is a travel agent representative was trying to be helpful (and screwed up).
A lesser possibility is that a travel agent representative recognized that there are lots of bookings with no frequent flyer number entered, and they tried to make use of it.

I think it's very unlikely that "Singapore Airlines stole" your miles.

Seems like I'm in the minority here, but I do think there is a possibility of fraud here. Don't have any answers for OP, but it is possible someone saw a LHR-SIN-BWN itinerary that depending on fare class could earn 15K+ miles, and set up an account under OP's name to get the miles and redeem them on a short haul award for a "family member."

I think ANA restricts redemptions to listed family members, so maybe get in touch with ANA and get the login information for "your" account and see if there are any designated "family members"? This may not get your miles back, but would at least give you control of the account or give the police a lead?

Besides a rogue SQ/travel agent, maybe someone picked up a used boarding pass or itinerary printout out of the trash?

My advise is be patient in dealing with SQ and hopefully they can fix it, maybe you need to escalate but calm down and don't accuse SQ of theft. Had a somewhat similar situation but not exactly.

I had a few EK flts and provided my AS FF # on boarding pass and ticket. On checking a few mos. later no credit for a few segments on AS. I contacted AS and they said it has been credited to EK so I sent over my e-tkt and boarding pass with AS FF # and AS promptly credited AS miles and I ended up with double credit on EK and AS for a few segments. AS has consistently superior customer service.

for what its worth, i once had an MU FF account, which i never used. i always credit my flights to my AF account, but once, i had to do a quick checkin at the airport kiosk, and the kiosk automatically linked it to my MU account based on my phone number.

as i was in a rush, i didnt key in any FFP number thinking i will just do a retro claim after the flight but yea stupid system automatically linked it to my MU account based on phone number.

they wouldnt reverse it, called both AF and MU. HUCA multiple times and finally got an AF agent who said that if i can show proof of the closing of MU account, they will be able to then credit the miles into my AF account.

which was what i did, called to close the account, got an email confirmation, forwarded it to AF and the flight was retro-credited into AF few days later.

not sure if it works the same for ANA/SQ

3) sounds like the most likely/fishy. The travel agent has all your flight details. Probably the agent (or the agent's 'friend') were trying their luck that you didn't enter your FF# at check in, and scored a goal. If your ticket was a full fare ticket you'd earn a decent amount of miles for the return trip you flew, enough to redeem a short-haul flight. I'm not familiar with ANA's scheme, but even SQ's scheme (and almost all others i think) will allow you to use your miles to ticket a flight for someone else. In your case you probably earned maybe something like 15k miles? On SQ's chart that's enough for a one-way between Singapore (or Bali) and Manila!

IIRC, ANA program has some family sharing thing for miles? That's a way this scheme could work, that is to put a few together and claim to be family, then there is a sizeable amount to work with.

I'd also suggest to call SQ to get the ANA mileage number credited to, since you are technically the "owner" of the ANA frequent flyer account.

I was thinking of fone's solution as well. You might also consider calling ANA as yourself and explaining the situation after talking to SQ.

As far as I'm aware, *A doesn't check names, so James Smith could claim miles fir Brenda Davidson's flying.

Which if correct is a deep security/policy flaw in terms of fraud or abuse. I hope that OP can get this resolved.

This can't possibly be true... especially across the whole alliance. I hope OP updates us on what happens.

Honestly, I can't imagine they don't check names. If you're right, I'm kinda scared. Every time I've tried to claim missing miles, I've had to log into my account, so at the very least I've "entered" my name there. It should only take them a second to check that name vs the name on the booking.

So does the OP have a common last name?

They opened an account with the name of the OP. Is done all online and you can book an award flight for another name.
To collect that data can be done very easy and by many persons, from checkin agents, gate agents, back office to other passengers.
I think its easy to steal those information on bord, usually the passenger list is also accessible.

We're all speculating as to what happened, lets wait for the OP to come back with the outcome, if there ever will be an outcome.

I haven't got a final resolution, but did yet some interesting information from ANA. A person opened an account with them online using my name, claimed the miles, and then spent the miles on the same day. So this is pretty clearly fraud. ANA says they cannot help, so I've forwarded the info to SQ, and am waiting for a response. I'm not hopeful!

This is an interesting one. Don't like you chances. Not clear exactly who is liable for this.

Were you able to get more info from ANA?

What is it spent on? Flight redemption (what dates and flight and for who), or was it transferred to a "family" account? Or for other items like vouchers? The ANA US site does allow for like Amazon / Macy's gift cards.

Or how about you asking to take over control for that account and see if there is any history in the online account (I'm not too familiar with ANA online system)?

If it were me, I'd make a police report and see what the police can do from there. If they can weed out the fraudsters, it would be safer for the rest of people who do not key in FF number at check in.

Where is the risk, if any, in entering it at the time of booking instead?

This is the definition of incompetence and pig-headed idiocy. They know what happened but will not help. For once I thought Japanese bureaucracy might prove useful but alas.

You cannot blame ANA, how would they know that the OP and this anonymous person are not in cahoots! I am not saying the OP is a bad person but no one knows until the airlines put in place strict regulations with regards to names have to match etc when adding a FF #.

In this instance, as an account was opened in the OP's name fraudulently, it looks like the names of the traveller and the flyer did actually match. Hard to see a way around this.

(I'm not a KrisFlyer member. Forgive me if this is offbase.)

Why do the traveller and flyer names have to match?
Can't John Smith book a flight for Jane Doe?

http://onemileatatime.img.boardingar...6.14.55-PM.png

Sorry , I wasn't so clear, I was referring to earning miles. Whilst John Smith can book a flight for Jane Doe he most certainly cannot earn miles on flights that Jane Doe takes (this is the case for most FF programs, the exceptions being those, such as Virgin Australia's program, that allow family pooling).

deleted/mistake

If the fraudster follows the same MO and have done it multiple times, it should not be that hard to catch the fraudster or the person outside doing the redemption, or both.

I'm not the person doing this, but it is not hard to think in the shoes of the fraudster.

1) Someone with access to all the flyers' information, either someone within SQ who does some sort of sweep for travellers' details, or someone who booked the ticket for OP (ie travel agent or department).

2) Specially for flyers of long haul and higher probability for premium classes, as ANA website requires 12k miles for a US$100 Amazon e-giftcard (US site) or 10k miles for JPY10k ANA vouchers (SIN site). So the accrual value must be at least 10k miles. Redemption for air tickets might not be that good in this case as travellers' details are provided plus the scheme might get uncovered before the flight and all benefits lost (flight cancelled).

3) Redemption of miles almost immediately after miles are credited. I'd say most people redeem miles only when the miles are about the expire or even allow the miles to expire. Those who redeem almost immediately are the minority.

4) Either someone went into the system to key in the FF number after check in (so that it does not appear on the boarding pass), or the claim has be made soon after the minimum waiting period for retroactive mileage claim (for example, ANA allows claim only after 3 days of the flight, SQ only allow about 1 or 2 weeks from flight IIRC)

5) New FF account, most likely from ANA (shorter wait time for retroactive claim and low redemption amounts for vouchers available).

6) Vouchers either by mail or digital should leave some sort of trail.

Unless this is a one-off case (other cases might involve non FFP savvy flyers who do not care about mileage accrual), it should be easy to find the fraudster(s), assuming the relevant parties are willing to provide information, thus I was suggesting that OP make a police report to add pressure (as well as to provide legitimate case) to the relevant parties.

Right.
You'd have to know my full name, but you would not have to be named the same as me.

Someone, say, at the travel agency, is named Donald Trump. (I don't know where I picked that name from.)

Donald Trump learns that John Smith booked a flight and didn't leave a frequent flyer number.

Donald Trump creates a new account, and gives the name John Smith, and claims the points.
Donald Trump then uses this new John Smith account to book a flight for Jane Doe.
Or, Donald Trump puts an offer online for a cheap airfare deal, and Jane Doe agrees and pays Donald Trump a few hundred bucks, and a few minutes later, she gets an airline ticket booked in her name.

Most of the time, the real John Smith is never gonna find out anything happened, and the airline isn't gonna suspect anything was amiss.

And Donald Trump gets away with committing a crime.

Given that if it's a flight redemption that has to be booked for a real, existing person, shouldn't it be VERY easy to track the fraudster?

Unless the fraudster is selling the redemption to someone else. Then it's a lot of corners to find out what happened.

VERY interesting case though, I hope OP keeps us updated on the development. ANA should definitely see it's clearly fraud and cancel the redemption as well as follow-up to try and get in touch with the person named for the redemption.

But catching the fraudster after the event is different to setting up processes in the first instance to prevent it happening.

I was merely pointing out (based on a suggestion that better systems should be in place to ensure names should match), setting up the systems to ensure name on ticket and name on FF number account match will not on their own prevent this from happening, where there is deliberate fraud. Other checks and balances would be needed.

Re bolding - as others have pointed out, they didn't need to know one way or the other that you might have given your FF number at check-in. They simply set up the account and check it after you have flown. If the miles credit they use them, if the miles don't credit, they probably figure you entered another FF number at check-in. And they move to the next account they have fraudulently set up.

All Nippon can find the account set up in your name and even give you the details of the flight or other award redeemed - by whom and to where.

Wold be interesting to know what it was.

This was precisely my point. Except they can't be bothered.

OP here.

Amazingly, I've finally won the battle, much to my surprise.

After sharing the note from ANA that established that there was fraud, and asking them directly whether their policy is that miles that have been incorrectly allocated by them due to fraud cannot be recovered (and adding that they cannot fault me for not giving my number when I checked in, since they allow and encourage retroactive credits), they suddenly transferred the responsibility to someone else in their team.

About two weeks later, they made the credit to my Miles & More account.

It has taken the time since May to sort this out, but somehow it came together.

As you can imagine, I've been much more diligent about giving my ff# on subsequent flights!