Converting Miles into $$$ (legally)???
 

I was reading the bump thread and had an interesting idea...

Has anyone ever converted their miles into dollars by booking flights they think would be oversold with miles...showing up...and if you get the bump take the bump otherwise cancel the award ticket and go home? As a NW PE, I can cancel award tickets for nothing...

I only ask this because I hate using my miles for trips...if I put my butt in a seat, I want my EQM and Banked miles for my WIFE to not pay...but too many miles accumulating and my wife is too afraid of flying to begin with...

Any thoughts?

Thats nuts!

Aside from being completely off-topic, I doubt it would reliably work, if only because you're assuming that not only could you get an award seat on such a flight, but also that you'd be able to successfully guarantee the bump on a regular enough basis to make your time outlay worthwhile.

Mike

You don't need miles to do this, you can buy refundable tickets.

With that said, this sort of thing is generally frowned upon here on FT. I know people have done it, but IMO, it's a bit over the line.

You can always PM me, I'll be happy to take a few miles off your hands. Paying for same is of course not legal, but gifting is perfectly fine ;)

EMK

This thread isn't really Mileage Run related, so I'm moving it to TravelBuzz. But before I do, I will agree with the previous posters - this isn't really ethical & I personally would not do it. Also, I'd find it a pretty solid waste of time. Is a free roundtrip or a voucher really worth that much energy to go to book a flight, go to the airport, wait around, volunteer, and not end up having to volunteer, just for the opportunity to get a bump? Most of those that do get bumped, don't get them intentionally (although there's nothing wrong with "booking for the bump" when you're on a mileage run or a regular trip) - but often when we least expect it. The only time that something like this would work & have decent chances of working would be the Wednesday before Thanksgiving or the Sunday after & possibly around Christmas. And at that time, do you really want to be intenionally spending time in a madhouse non-frequent-traveling populated airport? Not me.

bhatnasx
Mileage Run Moderator

In addition to the above, the availability of award seats on sold out flights is usually 0. Maybe you would book the 50k premium awards to gibe you more availability. Enough people do this, adn NW no longer allows you to recredit for free. As soon as enough people scam an airline into loss of revenue, the airline cracks down hurting both you, and every other person who has that perk.

Sympathy from other FT members for you will not be great as you may take the seat that they wanted to buy or redeem on either.

Legal fraud is still unethical.

Legal Fraud? NOT.
 

I have to disagree with the above line of reasoning. The airlines make the rules. As long as you stay within those rules, if you happen to benefit it is not Fraud of any type.

I have had it happen to me in the past with fully refundable tickets bought the day of the flight. Arrive to board the flight is oversold and they need volunteers. I took the volunteer got the refund and went another day on the voucher.

I have not tried it with miles, since it is harder to get seats at the last minute using miles.

Here is why I feel it is perfectly legitamite and both parties benefit.

The airline had no qualms at all selling me a ticket for $600 to fly on a RJ from DFW-AUS (about an hour flight) at the last minute (several hours before the flight) when they knew, or had strong reason to believe the flight would be oversold. The airlines thinking is, lets get as much for that seat as we can and then we will give some poor smuck that needs the money a $200 on there $125 non-refundable ticket, and the airline actually sells that seat twice. They also know that quite a bit of the DBV's that are handed out are never used. So the airline actually intends to make $725 on a seat that was only selling for $125. I do not have any qualms with the airline making as much as they can off any given seat. There cost is negligible since they send the person that got bumped on the next flight that would have flown with an empty seat anyway. The airlines goal is to make money. My goal is to travel (within the rules) as cheaply as possible.

Is it "worth it" to plan what flights would be oversold, go to the airport and hope, and then intentionally miss the flight if it is not oversold? That is up to the individual. It also depends on which airline, there booking patterns, etc. The one it happened to me on was the DL regional carrier when they were actually at DFW and they were notorius for overbooking. COex and Pinnacle generally do not overbook a whole lot. It is totally personal preference, but I definitly do not see anything fraudulent or unethical about it. If you feel that airlines selling the same seat twice is ethical and non-fraudulent than you have to say that "booking for the bump" is also ethical and non-fraudulent. You should not have a double standard on this. Remeber, we play by THE AIRLINES rules, if they thought it was unethical they would not allow it.

I always get a kick out of people stating that selling miles is illegal. That is not the case. Selling your miles is against the rules that the airlines put in place, but doing so is of course legal (you are certainly not breaking any law by selling your miles).

Depends on your definition of "illegal." The context under which it is used - being against the rules - is, in my opinion, perfectly legitimate, if you wish to consider that the rules governing FFPs are, in that sense, the law.

(I'm not suggesting that selling miles is a violation of government-enforced laws; however, stating something as "illegal" should not automatically imply that the government made it so. After all, no football player is going to jail over an "illegal use of hands" penalty.)

That said, however, I think that this thread has turned into an instance of situational ethics here on FT. Several people have mentioned that this is a frowned-upon practice that crosses the line - even though it, by all appearances, doesn't violate any rules for the FFP in question. One poster even used the phrase "Legal fraud is still unethical" to decry the mere mention of the concept.

In other threads (namely in MilesBuzz!), however, there are occasional threads devoted to mileage-earning schemes - generally involving the usage of credit cards - that generally involve some purchase, followed by a conversion of that purchase into a liquid cash form, so that miles can essentially be earned for free. There are three major ones that I can think of that have been discussed over time:

1) Purchasing large-ticket merchandise, then returning for cash
2) Purchasing gift cards, then cashing out the cards
3) Purchasing money orders with a credit card

In all three of these instances, successful use of the scheme requires a rule to be broken, either by the merchant, the credit card company, or both. (To summarize, 1 requires a merchant to violate policies prohibiting cash returns on credit card purchases, 2 requires a merchant to violate store policies prohibiting cashout of gift cards, and 3 requires violations of rules prohibiting credit cards to be purchased with a credit card.)

Yet, there is a significantly smaller outcry over those schemes - which are against the rules - than there is about his one, where no rules appear to have been violated. (Even a moderator has weighed in and called this one unethical, which, to my knowledge, has never happened with any of the other ones.)

So, why the hypocrisy? Is it because the risk for unfavorable rules changes increase due to abuse? Or is it because we only care about things that might hurt ourselves, and not someone else?

Flame away.

Mike

The benefit certainly doesn't exist for the amount of time it would take to perform this scheme, at least in my busy life.

Maybe it's worth it for someone else.

Seems like a waste of time. Just put them in coupon connection. And good post Mike.

With the IRS rulings, it is in all of our interests for there not to be a dollar value that can be associated with FF miles...

Doesn't this actually belong in MilesBuzz rather than TravelBuzz?

:confused:

I am looking for the rationale in your wife's fear of flying due to a healthy accumulation of miles. :confused: Please elaborate.

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

book a seat, check-in, and never intend to board...
 

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. :td:

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? :D