I agree, but if you get caught the penalties are extreme. Imagine paying someone a bunch of cash for 2 FC tickets to a far away destination. When you at the airport ready to return, imagine the agent saying they have evidence that the tickets were bought and now you will have to pay the full fare to return. Also, the seller can be penalized with the loss of their account miles. If you did sell them, I'd make sure it was to a friend or someone you can trust to always say the miles were gifted. If you don't, you can end up being hammered by the airline.

What if you were ending a relationship with a frequent flyer program?

Would there be a problem selling all your miles to a broker?

The problems are likelier at the purchaser's end than yours, but there still could be problems that would arise.

Mike

I am a FF. I want a good price on my travel, but I also want the airlines to make a reasonable profit, so their business is sustainable, and they keep flying me around.

Airlines overbook to try and fill up the A/C, not to screw you or me. They can't actually sell all the seats twice and keep the $$, they just get a change fee for you inconveniencing them with an unexpected change. I'm sure they'd rather 100% ticketed pasangers showed up.

If you buy a refundable seat (miles or $$) on an almost full plane, and it fills up, and you don't plan to ride, then you may have cost ME that seat I wanted and actually needed to get to grandma's. Plus you have guaranteed the airlines less revenue on that flight when you don't board.

Booking a bump run may be OK if you actually intend to sit in the plane. They sell you a ticket, you fly, or accept a bump. But to book a seat, check-in, and never intend to board is beneath my ethics. If lots of people did it, the airlines would have to raise rates, and overbook a higher % to stay in business.

Wow, this thread got a little more out of hand than I was expecting. This thought only really came to my mind a few months ago. My parents needed desperate computer help so I used a free miles ticket to go to EWR (i hate flying and not accruing miles). On the way home my flight got cancelled and I was rebooked on an oversell. The $300 voucher made my trip feel much better because I could use it for a nice mile run. Now I do have to state that I am a very busy person and do not want to sit at an airport just waiting for a bump (although this makes me think I could do this just to get past security when excorting an elderly relative...), but I do want to state that this situation became interesting today. I have 2 award tix (wife and I) from ORD-EWR. Flights were $300 each, and it just wasnt worth paying, so I booked NW out and CO back on standard award. I found out today the return right after mine was VERY oversold and had only 2 tix left to be had, so I ponied up 25,000 extra miles (12,500 each) for rulebusters on that flight. I AM planning on flying, but I changed figuring that I can turn the extra miles into 2 vouchers for 2 mile runs. Not as bad as the original idea, but I dont think there really is anything wrong with this (heck, if there was standard avail for this later flight I might have booked it any). So is it wrong that I gambled an extra 25,000 miles for this?

Nothing wrong as long as you know it's a gamble. I've been on plenty of flights that showed F0 Y0 before take-off but departed with empty seats (this happens much more often than flights that need bumps). You basically spent 25,000 miles (that you value at $300 or less) hoping that you'll get up to $600 of bump vouchers (if one of you is bumped, then it's a push).

A lot of effort for what it is worth!

If I had tons of spare miles (which I don't, I burn them all!) and wanted to convert them to cash I'd sell them to family and friends at reasonable rates. Then everyone wins, plus it means not going through a mileage broker, and what are your chances of friends and family ratting on you to the airline?