Last month I wrote about how airlines combat fraudulent tickets and what airlines look for to crack down on the sale of miles.
And in perhaps one of the most important posts I’ve ever written on the blog, What To Do If Your Frequent Flyer Account Gets Audited.
Selling award tickets, tricking their systems to generate miles you don’t deserve, and sometimes ‘abusing’ the programs completely within their rules can draw extra attention to your frequent flyer account.
Over the past several years American and United have probably been the most active in policing accounts. Occasionally US Airways has frozen accounts but after a month-long review period has generally been open to reasonable argument and restored miles. IHG Rewards Club has shut down tons of accounts for bonuses earned. Historically Delta’s “Revenue Protection Unit” (RPU) was very active.
Most of the time, though, programs play it pretty conservative — by the time they go after you it’s because they already have substantial evidence of wrongdoing. And they only pull the trigger on shutting down an account, or even making their investigation public, when they’ve got you dead to rights.
I’ve rarely heard stories of accounts being suspended unfairly. Whenever those stories have surfaced, initial details shared will usually point in that direction but when the whole story comes out there’s almost always the sale of miles, or some kind of fraud against the program. It’s almost universal, people share stories in the best possible light to themselves, and only with limited information. But in the end I’ve rarely seen the airline or hotel program truly in the wrong.
Until now…
I’m hearing stories of one rogue employee at a major airline, who seems to get it wrong and who won’t let go.
One of my readers who had dealt with this person, and who was getting absolutely nowhere, has escalated things with a lawyer and is now dealing with the airline’s legal department.
This reader is a multi-million miler with the airline, buys paid premium class tickets, and uses the airline’s co-brand credit card. And while there was some unusual account activity, it appears innocent, and it also doesn’t appear that the airline was hurt by it or the member benefited from it at all. The allegations made, as well, are almost incoherent. They do not make logical sense. And when rebutted, new allegations which make equally little sense surface.
I’m interested in hearing from readers who may have had a similar experience recently with a frequent flyer program. Please, be candid and honest or leave out your story if you did indeed do anything remotely against a program’s rules. I’m interested in hearing from people who really did nothing wrong and had their account suspended or closed anyway.
Please share your story!
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” And while there was some unusual account activity, it appears innocent, and it also doesn’t appear that the airline was hurt by it or the member benefited from it at all.”
I think SOME specifics regarding this would be helpful to A) determine if indeed the rogue airline employee is wrong in this instance, and B) in order to help the readers avoid similar pitfalls (i.e. if they are engaging in similar activies).
Its only fair to be forthcoming since the post is asking others to be candid and honest as well
Agreed, Jay.
If you believe its a single rogue employee, I’m curious why you aren’t naming the aairline?
Are you refering to George @ AA? He’s a real asshole.
I feel like I know who you’re talking about…pretty long thread on FT…involving potential police impersonators? Very odd story indeed.
I have to concur with the above comments. Not naming the airline, not naming the employee, not naming what the innocent oddities were and not repeating any of the incoherent rebuttals… then asking for hot tips from your readers isn’t much of an entry. Even the entries over on the MR blogs aren’t much worse, and that is saying something.
Sometimes the airlines do make a mistake and they admitt that and the acct is reopened and is in good standing (but probably red flaged and watched).
Either the activity was legit or it was not. If when questioned about it either you can provide 100% proof you did everything in accordance with the T&Cs or you cant and you are able to answer all the questions with the info they know or not.
If they dont hear what they are looking for then imo they are correct to assume your actions were of the type not allowed. The burden of proof of innocence is on us, they dont have to prove eg that we sold the miles or traded what isnt allowed to be.
Not everyone will like to be a member of an organization that is like that. Thats OK just call the airline and ask that they close your acct, since you dont agree with their T&Cs.
My dog’s account was shut down, and my turtle’s, and my lamp’s…
Cello guy ruined it for us all!
just had my FF shut down, by a nazi airline
This is a pointless article. It’s a bit of a let down reading half-way through the article only to realize that no specifics are being written about. I understand the need to protect your reader. But, if you can’t share any additional details, you might as well have nix writing this article.
I’m your biggest fan, but this article disappoints.
Since there is legal action going on (or possible going on), I can see why no names are being used.
George Bartulevicz, AA
I’m thinking he’s talking a multi million miler at a Texas airline that cobrands with a bailed out bank and got banned because he bought refundable tix to meet min spend, get sign up bonus, then refund the tix
Names are Julia Cohen and George Bartulevicz?
@Keith – the point of the piece was to identify anyone in a similar situation to what I described. They aren’t alone.
whats the link guys to the FT forum discussion? or which FT forum/thread is it in?
George Bartulevicz is the Darth Vador of miles.
Once he has his eyes set on you, forget about your AAdvantage account.
The more interesting question is what happens to your USAirways miles if George shut down your AA account? Guess he’ll steal those as well.
Interesting discussions on AA and one post regarding George Bartulevicz specificly.
“I used my American Airlines miles to book my disabled cousin a first class ticket to Japan so he can see my brother stationing there. I got a call from American Airlines agent George Bartulevicz 2 days before the flight. He asked me how I know the passenger and how much money I got for booking the tickets for him. George Bartulevicz interrogated me for over half an hour. He asked me repeatedly which ‘company’ paid me money to book my cousins first class tickets to Japan. George Bartulevicz told me the ticket is no good and I have to buy a full fare tickets. He proceeded to put my account on hold and blocked the tickets!!!! He said I cannot use my miles to book tickets for someone with a different last name!!!! The same afternoon I got an email from American Airlines accusing me of selling miles. They want me to fill out a form and tell them how I sold my miles.
I ended up paying $6000 to fly my disabled cousin on continental airlines from Dallas to Tokyo so he can see my brother before my brother goes back to Iraq. American Airlines is committing fraud!!! George Bartulevicz is very rude and did not listen to anything I told him. I would never bother to accumulate American airlines miles again. I will NEVER EVER fly on American Airlines again.
Please reponse to this posting if any one of you had a similar experience. I am thinking of getting a lawyer to sue American Airlines.”
http://www.airlinecomplaints.org/showthread.php?t=72
My account was suspended for the same reason by Julie Cohen from Aa hearing a lot of ppl having the same problem and I am trying to work with them and they won’t talk
gary if what happened is what Patricia posted then I frankly dont blame AA or even Citi if they closed up all bank and CC accts of the person
Now if the purchase and CXing the tkt was innocent, then the CC should have had alot more charges before and after the tkt was purchased and not have been made just before the end of the period to have made the $10K in charges. Since I dont know what was charged and when and for how much I wont I cant comment, but if AA sees it as a fraudulant transaction they need to prove it wasnt.
fwiw they were many folks getting more then 1 CC and making 1 charge for an AA tkt or vacation pkg in order to get the miles ASAP then CX the card get to keep the $200 credit and not owe the $450 ($250) annual fee. Why not a DL tkt cause an AA tkt earned an extra 10K (2x on the miles) Seems Pigs still are being slaughtered
“Barto” AKA George Bartulevicz is known for his tactics.
I have to agree with other commenters. I won’t say the blog post is “pointless,” I just think it’s weird without any more specifics. Even without naming the airline, why not give the details of how the miles are used rather than just your conclusion that it was innocent and the airline employee was wrong?
My understanding is that the case in question does not involved purchasing and cancelling tickets to earn a signup bonus. And that the person in question I believe has just a single co-brand credit card with the airline.
Also “without reason” is a big misleading if there was, in fact “unusual account activity.”
cant edit but my post #20 I meant to say that the Member and not AA needs to prove that what they did wasnt fraudulant otherwise SOL
@ Pegasus sorry but I would think like George did, not many folks will get a 1st class tkt for a cousin to fly 1/2 way around the world to see a cousin before they are shipped out.
Why didnt you just say hey George look at all the other tkts for the same time period thats my Mother and father, myself and my other siblings that I got tkts for as well.Oh you only got 1 tkt and for a cousin??? Sorry it doesnt wash even if its the truth. I would imagine when you show in court that your bro was in Japan and being shipped out and that the person flying was in fact your blood cousin, that AA will agree to refund the $$ and withdraw the miles.
@ gary I suggest you contact the person and ask them if in fact the purchase was in order to get the sign-up bonus or not. Otherwise it doesnt make sense, especially if the person buys premium fares all the time, Im sure they CX some from time to time when their plans change
Sorry something isnt adding up or being left out (not by you)
It is a foreshadowing of the death of loyalty to USA frequent flyer programs……….is Alaska the only USA program with a hopeful future?
I dont get tickets for anyone other than myself and my immediate family and these are coach domestic tix. I think clearly that if it is a international business or first ticket, that could attract attention.
If you google George Bartulevicz, you can see a very interesting powerpoint presentation from 2009 where they discuss ticket brokers etc. Looks like AA is very aware of many of these brokers and trys to track them closely.
@craz I’ve gone through all the conceivable questions of things they might have done. I was sure at first they must have done SOMETHING. I was skeptical at first. But they really don’t appear to do anything nefarious that I can ascertain. I did specifically ask about spending on a co-brand credit card either to earn bonus points, or to redeem an award and then cancel. Turns out they had BIG account balances, unredeemed miles, weren’t going after big credit card bonuses, etc. I agree it makes no sense. Which is entirely the point behind this post.
@gavinmac – the points weren’t really even used… this gentleman has a big account balance, wasn’t booking tickets for other people with different last name, etc.
What a clever tactic: Post the general outline and rely on readers to name names. Nobody can blame Gary for that because this blog has an established policy against censoring comments. Well played!
If other bloggers need a reason to stop censoring comments, this example should suffice.
this –
“I’ve gone through all the conceivable questions of things they might have done. I was sure at first they must have done SOMETHING. I was skeptical at first. But they really don’t appear to do anything nefarious that I can ascertain”
doesn’t jive with this –
“And while there was some unusual account activity, it appears innocent, and it also doesn’t appear that the airline was hurt by it or the member benefited from it at all.”
so seriously, which one is it?? what was the unusual acitivity that they did. Explaining that will greatly benefit your readers who could avoid this apperently innocent act that can lead to a great misunderstanding….
@Gary
Sounds like his biggest mistake was not knowing how to play the game… earn ’em and burn ’em! :p
If he’s really getting screwed here, I hope his lawyer’s a good one, and I hope, for all our sakes, that he comes out on top.
@ gary Thanks for getting back. here in NY theres an old saying,’If its too good to be true it probably isnt’
Im not saying the person is guilty of anything, and obviously it cant be the same person Patricia was referring to if sign-up bonus isnt involved
I just have a very hard time believing George didnt have all the facts and if he was wrong when proven so didnt reinstate the persons acct, which I understand has been done time to time. Something just doesnt add up, AA usually only acts when they have you dead in their sights.
Fascinating stuff….
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/05/business/la-fi-0506-golden-ticket-20120506
https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/353873/aa-security-event-report.pdf
George @AA is an awful completely malicious person. Gary, if you want details e-mail me. He nearly made a family member miss a critical doctors appointment in the US.
Gary, I’m looking around the web after reading your post… And there are a LOT of people saying that they suddenly got miles/status/tickets banned by AA out of the blue for redeeming miles for a non-relative.
The crazy thing is that some of these people claim to be relatively. Like my wife has a different last name on her passport still. Also, is there really such a rule? I’ve never heard of it.
And then these people have to fill out a form admitting to selling miles… that they didn’t sell. So they’re just screwed.
This is seriously freaky that an airline can do this and nothing happens. What is anyone to do, hire expensive lawyers and continue to try to get the airline to talk?
Furthermore, they’re just going around enforcing rules they don’t have purely because they don’t have any proof.
How is this not a big deal in our community?
Seriously freaky? AA should be ashamed.
Ok just in case you “haven’t” been following, the Airlines just received a major decision in the US Supreme court regarding their ability to police their own programs and any FF’s “standing” to bring a lawsuit against the airline for malfeasance.
Now also “Just in case” you don’t understand what the Supreme Court has held, or what this most likely means going forward, let me simplify it for you.
FF miles are seen as “discounts” towards future purchases, and have no intrinsic value other than with the issuing organization. A FF’s “standing” to bring a lawsuit against the airline for their administration of the program has been severely questioned and found lacking.
So unless you plan on expending tens of thousands of dollars in litigation costs in order to debate the cost of a 1000-2000 dollar ticket, I would think most of your empty threats of litigation are going to fall upon deaf ears.
BTW, when attempting to clarify or change internal corporate policy it’s usually NOT a good idea to lead off with the following tactic,
” I don’t like what you do. I like how I THINK. If you won’t do what I want you to do and think the way I think, I’ll sue you.”
It’s America. Sue him. Sue Everybody. But just trying to let you “in” on the facts as they stand in the year of our lord 2014.
George and AA do not give a flying hoot about your idle threats of litigation.
@Jcell
“Just in case” you don’t know, there are other, better, forums where you can spout about lawsuits without actually knowing any of the facts.
I was interrogated because of a ticket purchased by my own husband on American Airlines. Yes, we do have different last names. It’s 2014. Not 1414. The fact that we’ve lived at the same address for over 30 years should be good enough for American Airlines. And I think there are going to be many, many more cases coming up where spouses don’t share last names. Shouldn’t an airline be fined if they are practicing what amounts to pretty blatant discrimination? They did let me fly but I feel like I should not have been questioned in the manner I was questioned. They had at least two weeks before I made the trip when they could have called me and my husband at our home and asked their questions. They waited until I was overseas and then put me through a prolonged questioning. Reading the above hints, I can’t help thinking now that the plan was to try to intimidate me into paying for a ticket I’d already bought with my spouse’s miles. If they’re really doing that to people, I would hope that they are fined because it crosses a line.
If this blog and boarding area didn’t have links from the co-branded card from this carrier, perhaps the author would be more willing to name the carrier. This would be for the benefit of readers.
@Billy I have not promoted a card earning any credit to me from the airline in question in a long long time.
Given all of this….
Do you still trust AA? If they are as evil as you’ve made them sound, I really don’t see how you can, without sounding like a complete shill, but that just my humble two cents
I have been saving miles for 4 of us to go to Africa business or first class…me, my husband, a friend that introduced us 30 years ago (this is a gift) and a former coworker (also a gift). I did not think this would be breaking any rules. Am I likely to get interrogated or will it help that I am traveling with the others (assuming I am lucky enough to get us in the same flight). Interesting post/comments.
@Ocean Breezes I can’t imagine that they are going to allow the friend and former coworker to travel without a lot of questions. It’s somewhat unbelievable that you would buy an expensive gift like an air ticket for a former co-worker without being paid. I’m not saying I don’t believe you but I think the best plan is to pay for your ticket and your husband’s ticket and to let other adults be adults and pay their own way. Because it will not be pretty if they wait to ask questions/cancel the tickets after you’re already at the destination and have to fly back…
this just shows why I believe miles will be regulated soon…companies arent going to do things without being told they need to, unfortunately, and activities like this prove it.
Don’t panic people. I have booked numerous tickets using AAdvantage miles for friends of mine and never had a problem. Why should there be? That’s what the program is for. I also used a substantial amount for myself as well. United on the other hand is really incredible. 3 years ago my account got compromised and someone booked a ticket for the same day one way to Brazil. United later fwd me the passenger receipt and it showed a billing address in the US. I wrote registered letters to both this address and United stating there was either a terrible mistake with the deduction or fraud and that I expect this to be resolved. United returned the miles (I think it was around 70k) but 2 days later closed the account for ‘violating T&C’. This was a 1K account that was two years old and apart from me redeeming ticket on my favorite flight back then SQ12/SQ11 in First Class there were never any other redemptions. Airlines are crooks! Now as soon as I have enough miles for a nice award I book it and fly on it. I don’t believe in stockpiling miles and points anymore, there is close to zero legal protection.
@Ocean Breezes you should be just fine