zombietooth

While I am all in favor of sending 1099s to businesses and individuals who may be underreporting income or overdeducting expenses (e.g. to a property owner that I leased from who refused to compensate me for my attached equipment and improvements when the lease ended but who, deducted and depreciated said improvements), to go a step further and imply that they are committing fraud is unnecessary and possibly legally problematic.

lincolnjkc

I am certainly not a lawyer but doesn't "do this and I won't report a crime" / "don't do this and I'll report a crime" where "this" is voluntarily forfeit instruments coercion that's getting dangerously close to crossing the line into extortion?

WineCountryUA

Let's leave the tax issues for another forum.
Returning to our regularly scheduled topic


Thanks

WineCountryUA
UA coModerator

mozilla

Prefer not to embrace and spread the notion that it is a "free ticket". There are costs for award travel, it's just that the airline coughs them up (or they compensate OAL). For some misinformed agents, the incorrect notion that is free also seems to justify differential treatment of pax traveling on an award because they're "just on a free ticket". Ironically, the same agents often don't extend that judgment of "free tickets" to non-revs.

Airlines prefer the term breakage

It's not "their" miles to begin with. IIRC it was made very clear when I signed up for UAMP many years ago that I don't own any of the miles, which also explains why those miles can expire, why the expiry date for already awarded miles can change, and why you can't sell them. Not sure how that idea of personal miles ownership came to be. I'm guessing it's the travel/loyalty blogs with their affiliate articles for credit cards again?

escapefromphl

It’s clearly in the terms and conditions (“10. Prohibition of sale or barter.”) Where else would they possibly need it?

United doesn’t need to be providing a constant moral compass, which will be ignored by those breaking the rules anyway.

jhayes_1780

But were not talking about Joe once a year.

Ari

UACompliance probably takes these seemingly drastic actions in large part to deter; they likely know word gets around as to the attitude they take when they catch people. Those who 'unintentionally' violate the rules are punished equally severely; think of them as necessary collateral damage? Not knowing the rules and not breaking the rules are two different things after all . . .

lincolnjkc

They are and they aren't though... there's no mens rea test as to if the rules have been violated or not. If you chose to participate in a program and haven't availed yourself of the opportunity to familiarize yourself* with the rules/guidelines, ultimately it is on you if the rules get broken.

If you pass a speed limit sign doing 70 when the sign shows 30 and an officer pulls you over you're guilty of speeding. It doesn't matter if you didn't see the sign or if you saw the sign and ignored it.

I have a bit more sympathy in this case for those who truly "didn't know" (didn't bother to read), but ultimately the rule is broken and UACompliance doesn't have any reasonable way to confirm if the ignorance is feigned or actual. And it's not a hidden rule either.


*yourself, including in this case, anyone you entrust access to your account to, eg. allegedly in the most recent OP's case.

Often1

The question of whether it is "common sense" or "should have read the fine print" really is not relevant. Bottom line is that one is free to simply check those boxes certifying that one has read & understood and accept various matters without reading them. But, one cannot later argue that because one did not read the material, it somehow does not apply.

This is just a business arrangement. It is governed by a contract.

J S

I admit to managing my one year old's account. I also manage his dirty diapers. Pretty sure United won't have a problem with my doing either one.

JimInOhio

I'm sure they won't mind until you start selling your one-year-old's upgrade instruments online.

J S

I started reading that and thought it was going to be, "I'm sure they won't mind until you start selling your on-year-old's dirty diapers online."

Ari

I don't think that fact is up for debate.

I think the question in this thread is, "is it good practice for UA to take the harsh approach they take based on how badly it offends some people?" They are not obligated to stand on their contractual rights. UA can sanction however they want, harsh or not-- that's what the contract says.

That said, I defended UA's harsh approach above and gave my reasoning.

dilanesp

One thing that militates in favor of a harsh approach here is that despite what everyone who gets caught claims, I think most of the people UA is going after know exactly what they are doing.

The thing about situations like this- which arise in the law as well as in business contracts- is that a lot of people assume that just because they claim innocent intent, everyone has to believe them. I can't tell you the number of times someone has said to me "I'll just tell them X if I get caught" and I have to respond with exactly that- you can say anything you want, but that doesn't mean they have to credit your explanation. Indeed, many, many people are actually serving prison sentences where they figured the jury would have to believe their "innocent" explanation for what they did.

Yes, I understand that it is possible for someone to get caught up in this because they didn't read the program rules and just figured they could sell an award they weren't going to use or something. But I don't think that's a reasonable explanation of what most of these folks are doing. Rather, they just figure they won't get caught, the same way a lot of people assume that they won't get caught when they are doing something wrong.

JimInOhio

I fully agree. It's hard to imagine United is looking for reasons to throw customers out of the MileagePlus program. Instead, I have to think they are looking for true repeat violators of their rules.