Passenger Falsely Accused A United Pilot Of Using A Slur — Then Asked For Points

Mail Rubent went online to put United Airlines on blast, saying that a pilot called them “the R word” on their flight.

I cannot believe this @united I was called the R word on my most recent flight by THE PILOT no less. Shame!

— Mail_Rubent (@mail_rubent) April 17, 2026

United Airlines was, naturally, concerned. But what would ‘the r-word’ even be? (I’ve at least come up with a guess.) Except, no, it never happened. But pleast give me miles as compensation.

Yeah I lied sorry can I have points please

— Mail_Rubent (@mail_rubent) April 17, 2026

There’s actually a long-standing social meme of baiting the brand account and admitting whatever you’re complaining about was fake. With airlines, this involves then asking for points.

Maybe the most famous example of his came in 2017 when someone sent Southwest a fake complaint about a rude flight attendant and generated significant details about the whole thing, then saying they took a photo of the flight attendant to aid in the investigation – dropping a picture of flight attendant Britney Spears. Southwest got it. And just shrugged, “oops, she did it again.”

Sometimes the fake complaints aren’t just a bit. One traveler reported they “racked up $1700 in flight vouchers and $1000 in miles” by repeatedly complaining.

To be clear, I never claimed false damages, lost baggage, unused tickets, anything like that. I complained a lot about delays because I was pissed and they made me miss a wedding. Was I petty? Yes.

I racked up $1700 in flight vouchers and $1000 in miles because they kept giving them as I was calling annoyed.

Now they closed my account and said im allowed to fly but without a status account, and that my profile is “flagged”

Did I break the law??? Or did I just piss the airline off. I dont want to get into legal trouble. Im in the US btw.

There are plenty of frivolous complaints out there, or demands for compensation well outside . Aero Dili publicly accused Cahill of demanding a free flight, hotel, per diem, and $50,000 cash for a positive review.

And then there was the woman who demanded compensation when British Airways failed to serve her a second meal because crew were providing CPR to try to save the life of another passenger that eventually died on her flight.

Complaining too much can get you banned and even tied up in litigation all the way to the Supreme Court, as in Northwest v. Ginsberg where the passenger complained 24 times in seven months and received $1,925 in travel vouchers, 78,500 bonus miles, and $491 cash before their account was shut down. It wasn’t that any of their complaints were necessarily even baseless. That was just not a profitable customer.

Then there was the character who posted at FlyerTalk.com and was banned from the forum many years ago used to share tales of intentionally damaging the inflight entertainment system at his seat in order to claim compensation. He told the tale to impress people, but everyone looked on in horror.

JetBlue was at least smart enough not to respond to a post “claiming it had failed to deliver a promised free flight to Italy” after they cancelled her flight, since of course JetBlue does not fly to Italy.