ExplorerWannabe

Because it's always been pretty clear that the program was not intended to confer a financial benefit but rather to enable frequent travelers to free or discounted travel or upgrades for their own personal use. The offers to sell "miles" are clearly there to enable travelers who are short of award miles for a planned redemption and it takes intentional obfuscation to say otherwise. {N}owhere do they imply much less say that selling you award miles that accelerate or enable a planned redemption mean you "own" those miles for any purpose other than your own redemption.

scracer14

Curious if person A agrees to use miles to fly person A and person B to a destination in exchange for person B using points for the hotel at that destination, if that exchange would be considered a sale? Should both person A's mileage account and person B's hotel account both be forfeit? What if the flight is in exchange for person B picking up the tab for dinner a couple nights?

WineCountryUA

These all could be considered rules violations (bartering is also not allowed) but in the real world UA is not going to care what friends do among themselves -- it is when it goes beyond that and you attempt to monetize your benefits or reach out to random 3rd parties to do such things.

JimInOhio

In this case, no one is trying to “market” their miles or points. Yes, it’s technically a bartering arrangement but one between two people who already have a relationship. To take this to the extreme, no airline is going to worry about someone giving their spouse a free ticket in exchange for dinner out somewhere.

radonc1

Or perhaps some other (de soto voice and winking eye) emolument

Often1

"Technically"?

This is a direct violation of the T&C. The question of whether one will be caught in the fraud is different from whether it is a violation. It is a violation.

JimInOhio

“Technically”, giving your spouse a free ticket can be a bartering arrangement, too. Does anyone think UA would consider this a violation worth penalizing? Of course not.

Often1

That was not the question. The problem on FT is that people start with: "it's not a violation of the rules" and then shift to "nobody will do anything about it if you do break the rules."

That's fine. People justify all kinds of things to feel better about their conduct.

But, what happens is that sooner or later it's not your wife, it becomes your second cousin's aunt and when things go sideways, she rants to UA that she "paid" for the ticket by paying for the account holder's room and that was worth $X.

dilanesp

Agreed.

Also, forebearance is not the same as permission. An airline might very well decide to let something slide. Happens all the time, even down to the person at the ticket counter who knows your bag came in 3 pounds over and just tags it through rather than charging the excess charge. An airline might well say "looks like he transferred this one to a relative" and not do anything about it, or "looks like he just transferred one and it wasn't worth much anyway". Those sorts of decisions can happen.

But nobody has the right to rely on that, any more than the fact that a cop who lets you off with a warning after you run a red light or speed a little creates any sort of right of reliance against future tickets. If you want to ensure you never get punished, you have to stay within the rules.

HNLbasedFlyer

I haven't read much of this thread - but we all know there are a lot of things for sale - that we buy - that we don't own.

Any confusion is simply an excuse when caught selling miles as an accountholder.

dgcpaphd

Considering that United has a huge supply of highly paid and bright employees on its staff, why not convince United to assign one or a few of those bright employees with the task of rewording the contradictory agreement that exists when a United customer BUYS miles?

There must be clever writers at United.

For United to continue to advertise "buy miles" when it does not really mean "sell" or "buy" is contradictory. If fact, it borders on misleading until a customer reads the "fine print" which most travelers do not do.

As it currently stands, when a United Airlines customer accepts the offer to buys miles, the buyer has to pretend that the miles were not purchased. That lacks logic.

Surely, someone at United can come up with a reworded offer for customers to acquire miles without using the word "buy" or "sell" -

A properly worded contract would cause a lot less confusion and/or resentment if and when a customer has a mileage plus account seized and/or closed due to alleged abuse.

ani90

Both points have been made clear in previous posts in the thread

lincolnjkc

But it's simply not the case. United sells you miles; you buy miles subject to the agreement that you may only use them as United specifies, specifically excluding reselling them further on. One of the terms of the rules is that United can determine who is permitted to sell/assign/transfer miles. It's perfectly reasonable (if not perfectly customer friendly) given UA's broad discretion in the manner to say the UA is permitted to sell you miles and you're permitted to buy miles from UA but to and from no one else. In fact UA does have a sanctioned mechanism to transfer miles between members -- at a cost.

There is no real ambiguity in the current MP rules.

JimInOhio

Can you point to anything in UA’s Ts & Cs that prohibits a MP member for using miles for an award ticket for a relative? It’s not a question of UA just looking the other way.

dgcpaphd

"There is no real ambiguity in the current MP rules."
_______________________

If there were no ambiguity, why does this thread exist?

It lacks logic to argue with a dozen or more dictionaries that define the word "sell" and "buy" which two words are repeatedly used during the sale/purchase transaction between the "buyer" (the customer) and the "seller" (United Airlines).