COSPILOT

I barely have enough miles each year for my family to travel on vacation, and I can count on one hand the times I have booked travel for family/friends for award travel. For those that I have booked travel for, I can offer proof of relationship.

I'm happy to see United cracking down on abuse.

porciuscato

From all the stories I know about people booking award tickets or upgrades for non-relations, it has become clear to me that United is only going to get you in the following ways:

1) You offer miles/upgrades etc. for sale and you run into a United "secret buyer" or United otherwise identifies you

2) The recipient talks to a United agent and unwittingly reveals that they purchased the miles/upgrade/etc. from you.


I know of many people who have legitimately given tickets/upgrades/etc to unrelated people living far away -- with no problems whatsoever. And they've never gotten so much as a query from United about it. This suggests to me that you have to really be caught in the act for United to take action.

Mike Jacoubowsky

It's odd that people don't think there's a strong connection here with Chase. I think it likely Chase is a very powerful driving force with the MP program, especially now that United has made it far more difficult to earn miles by flying. If Chase can make it more likely abusers (of MP awards) will be caught, it benefits Chase because there will be less incentive to churn cards. Chase has more to lose here than United, if we assume that United gets paid enough by chase for miles that they don't actually lose much, if any, money on award tickets.

I'm not saying that it's actually Chase running the MP fraud department. Just that there is likely a very close relationship between Chase and their algorithms for finding CC churners, and MP fraud. Could be that things that don't yet rise to the level of CC revocation still provide accounts that are more likely to have indications of fraudulent MP awards.

JonNYC

The folks that get nailed by UA either have offered their miles/instruments for sale or have proffered offers of same-- nothing to do with them churning credit card bonuses, serial-manufactured-spenders, etc. One has nothing to do with the other in these cases.

Kacee

There really isn't. They are totally separate businesses with independent program rules and fraud departments.

Chase will get involved if the use of its card violates its program rules (i.e., improper churning). But it has no jurisdiction over its cardholders' use of United miles once they are in the cardholder's Mileage Plus account. Those belong to United.

Similarly, UA will focus on improprieties in connection with the use of UA miles. Not the use of the Chase card to acquire them.

SEA1K4EVR

You don't think Alaska will do the same to protect their program? Here's an excerpt from their ToC's:

"Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles, award tickets, upgrade certificates, and companion certificates may not be sold, purchased or bartered except as permitted on Points.com. Travel agents, travel arrangers and unauthorized brokers are not permitted to issue Mileage Plan tickets or to process or facilitate any other Mileage Plan transactions (including Mileage Plan account creation, account inquiries, and mileage or award ticket transfers) on behalf of others. If Alaska Airlines becomes aware that a member or a third party has misrepresented his/her identity in order to perform a Mileage Plan transaction, Alaska Airlines may, in its sole discretion, void the transaction. miles or award tickets issued, transferred or obtained in violation of these conditions of membership are voidable, in Alaska Airlines’ sole discretion. The member and/or the traveler shall be liable for the full, unrestricted value of awards issued as a result of improper or fraudulent transfers or otherwise in violation of these conditions of membership. Alaska Airlines shall not be responsible for any inconvenience, damage or loss incurred by the member or the traveler if travel is interrupted or an award ticket is invalidated due to violation of these conditions of membership. Alaska Airlines reserves the right to deactivate the Mileage Plan account and/or remove the miles from the account of any member who violates these terms until liability is fulfilled, and all other rights under applicable law to enforce these conditions of membership."

Mike Jacoubowsky

My point is that a strong correlation may exist between the two, and there's no reason for Chase not to provide United of whatever evidence they might have... a way to corroborate a suspicion. Doesn't prove anything by itself.

During the "dark" days, the common FT assumption was that Chase was helping to keep UA afloat, because the CC biz was so lucrative and they didn't want to lose United's customer feed. Interesting that now people here believe them to be much less intertwined.

TA

A cynical part of me says, all the better to UA for selling miles to the CC companies, monitoring for abuse of the T&C as the miles come back to MP accounts, and then confiscating the miles. Pure $ to the bottom line. Thankfully, it is only a very small number of cases compared to the majority who use their miles normally.

Mike Jacoubowsky

I don't think there's an ethical issue with that at all. Besides, the amount confiscated is going to be miniscule compared to the number of miles that expire (spoilage), and the few examples of cheating that come to light here likely deter a great many more.

eng3

Who knows, maybe, hopefully. Or you could still have the same people inthe same jobs a doing the same thing they were doing a decade ago. Some things have UA have changed over the past decade, some things have not.

jerry a. laska

Also see Alaska Airlines v. Carey:
http://www.leagle.com/decision/In%20...%20v.%20CAREY?

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Thanks for the link - it's pretty interesting. Alaska considered each person travelling on a ticket Carey Travel sold fraudulently to be a "stowaway".

ani90

I would second this. In life we all look for loopholes to maximize our personal gain and in process may make poor, wrong or even criminal decisions.

Sometimes we know we are breaking rules, sometimes we think we are being clever and getting around rules. Sometimes we don't know we are breaking rules. I agree the penalty if caught is (and should be) the same. People on FT are very enlightened and without question nobody after reading this thread will trade miles - at least openly. But many are not so informed and believe they earned the miles and can do what they want with them. So if one has 1 million miles in bank and a cousin is having trouble getting a good price on a flight to Hong Kong then he says give me 500 bucks and I can fix you a ticket - I bet that happens much more than we think and since it isn't advertised it goes undetected. Reality too is some here who claim to have given tickets to family and friends without problem, have by default sold or bartered miles - maybe not for cash but also for kind as often nothing comes for nothing. Like in the wedding example, given somehow those tickets bought with miles were wedding related expenses. Sometimes the tickets bought with miles for friends and family are in lieu of other direct cash contribution for an individual or group project.

Those caught are not necessarily the only guilty ones here but are the uninformed scapegoats. Frankly I pity all those caught in this thread as the penalty probably far outweighs the "crime" and moreso there are likely many here who proclaim sainthood status who have done the same but just been smarter about it. Of course too the root of the problem is not addressed - the reason people are selling these miles and instruments is because the miles and instruments are increasingly useless for most people as many find it hard to use them and in some ways the airlines are issuing them under a cloak of deception that they have useful value (but reality is a significant proportion remain unused indefinitely or expire)

I know this is a minority opinion. I do not sell or condone sale of miles but just saying there is more to the matter and, as many state here, the only winners are the airlines and as customers we have no choice than to suck it or leave it.

Hipplewm

Also, Delta and American forums have the same threads. It is in the airlines best interests to curb fraud and keep what is left of their respective program in tact.

Kacee

In fact, AA is more aggressive than UA.