DansDeals - Time for a Master Thread? - FlyerTalk Forums (2024)

josephstern

Join Date: Jul 2006

Location: Upper Sternistan

Posts: 10,147

Just noticed this note on some recent posts:

Digging around, I only see it in posts from 2019 and only in posts with links to Amex cards. So I guess Dan done got himself all hitched up with Amex. It'll be interesting to see if there's any change in coverage and recommendations going forward.

ctownflyer

Join Date: Feb 2004

Location: CLE

Programs: UA GS+LT UC, AA EXP+LT PLT, Fairmont LT PLT, Marriott PLT, Hilton DIA, Hyatt Glob, Avis CHM

Posts: 4,691

Since late 2018 actually. I haven't noticed any change in coverage, but feel free to argue otherwise

84fiero

Join Date: May 2009

Location: South Park, CO

Programs: Tegridy Elite

Posts: 5,677

This was really cool, Dan brought out kosher food to passengers on a TLV-EWR flight which diverted to CLE.

https://www.dansdeals.com/points-tra...iner-tel-aviv/

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CodeAdam10

Join Date: Jul 2011

Location: North America

Posts: 2,265

Yup. ^ Not that you did this for kudos, but way to think differently [MENTION=29224]ctownflyer[/MENTION]

ctownflyer

Join Date: Feb 2004

Location: CLE

Programs: UA GS+LT UC, AA EXP+LT PLT, Fairmont LT PLT, Marriott PLT, Hilton DIA, Hyatt Glob, Avis CHM

Posts: 4,691

Simply putting myself in the passengers shoes and doing what I'd love if someone did for me had I been in that situation.

Never imagined it would be front page news in the CLE paper, but I guess people need to a break from all the depressing news stories.

boboqui

Join Date: May 2008

Posts: 1,612

Excellent commentary by Dan:

https://www.dansdeals.com/more/dans-...ken-soup-soul/

kokonutz

Join Date: May 1998

Location: Digital Nomad Wandering the Earth - Currently in BELGRADE, SERBIA

Posts: 58,947

Conspiracy theories? No thanks.

ctownflyer

Join Date: Feb 2004

Location: CLE

Programs: UA GS+LT UC, AA EXP+LT PLT, Fairmont LT PLT, Marriott PLT, Hilton DIA, Hyatt Glob, Avis CHM

Posts: 4,691

Glad you enjoyed!

I think you missed my overall point, but let's not re-litigate here.
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Feel free to join in the OMNI fest on TBB about the post: https://travelbloggerbuzz.com/91-div...mute/#comments

kokonutz

Join Date: May 1998

Location: Digital Nomad Wandering the Earth - Currently in BELGRADE, SERBIA

Posts: 58,947

Thanks! I really like that blog!

josephstern

Join Date: Jul 2006

Location: Upper Sternistan

Posts: 10,147

Dan is upset about AA shutting down accounts of people who reinstated their expired AA miles using retroactive car rental credits shared or bought from others:

https://www.dansdeals.com/points-tra...ify-existence/

I have to say, I'm surprised to see Dan digging in so deep on this one.

As best I can tell, he's drawing a fine distinction between forfeiting miles, and a full shutdown, without warning.

The 'warning' issue sounds like it's pivotal to Dan. How would a warning have worked here?

These seems out of character to me.

sbm12

Join Date: Apr 2001

Location: PSM

Posts: 69,232

Gotta wonder if that's a tactic previously endorsed, publicly or privately, driving the current position that AA's reaction to obvious fraud is egregious.

One might get away with suggesting there be a time cap on how far back a program should go to boot the fraudsters. But there's not much grey area to claim they thought the practice was legit.

ctownflyer

Join Date: Feb 2004

Location: CLE

Programs: UA GS+LT UC, AA EXP+LT PLT, Fairmont LT PLT, Marriott PLT, Hilton DIA, Hyatt Glob, Avis CHM

Posts: 4,691

1. I was angry at the completely irresponsible reporting on several major blogs that people doctored receipts in order to get miles. Perhaps that got the better of me, but I was shocked to read such poor research, claims, and assumptions about the issue.
2. I find it absurd that AA gives a warning for selling miles, which actually costs them revenue, while this was an immediate shutdown when it didn't cost AA anything.

Plenty of FTers have talked about making hotel transfers to non-matching accounts for decades. What if an airline went back and terminated everyone who ever did that? Would people not be up in arms? Would it really be worth it for the airline to do that without a warning or would that just be auditors looking to justify their existence?

IADCAflyer

Join Date: Sep 2000

Location: DCA/IAD

Programs: AA EXP; 1W Emerald; HHonors Diamond; Marriott Gold; UA dirt

Posts: 7,941

If I had customers who were falsifying activity and claiming it to be their own activity, I'd terminate their accounts too.

This is what auditors do. They look for instances where somebody as violated the law, or T&Cs, and they act in response. Same with IRS auditors; same with credit card fraud department employees; same with accounting firm auditors; same with police officers. They're there to protect the integrity of the programs they represent or protect the revenue of the goverment entity that employs them.

What I find amazing are the message boards / discussion forum there contains numerous threads (some over 100 pages long based on my thread settings) giving tips on things like 1) frequent fliers buying or being given receipts from people they don't even know in an effort to fraudulently claim the activity that was their own so as to preserve their frequent flier accounts, and 2) hidden city ticketing which people know to be contrary to the T&Cs of airplane tickets.

If you're going to play -very- fast and loose with T&Cs, ticketing rules, and program rules, please do -not- throw a fit or blow a gasket with auditors when you find that you got burned when those auditors wised up to the "game".

Blaming the auditors who are doing their jobs while ignoring fraud is an odd position to be taking.

ctownflyer

Join Date: Feb 2004

Location: CLE

Programs: UA GS+LT UC, AA EXP+LT PLT, Fairmont LT PLT, Marriott PLT, Hilton DIA, Hyatt Glob, Avis CHM

Posts: 4,691

Repeatedly saying fraud, fraud, fraud, does not fraud make.

AA can close these accounts and not give a warning (despite this practice being used for many years without issue and no fraud or doctored receipts needed as some blogs claimed), but with each shutdown they'll have fewer people trusting that they should invest in AAdvantage.

I still think it would have been fair for AA so expire their miles and warn that if you do that again you'll be terminated. But terminating without warning is just cutting off future revenue for no reason. These weren't people brokering tickets or the like that are what these audit teams were originally set up to shut down.

From the mailers to this, there's little doubt that there's mission creep in AA corpsec. It's a path that AA may one day regret, considering that this is the most profitable segment of their business.

The real question is what's next. Surely you know that FT has hidden city ticketing threads, coupon connection, etc. Will AA shut people down for hotel transfers from different people when the hotel allowed the transfer to anyone?

IADCAflyer

Join Date: Sep 2000

Location: DCA/IAD

Programs: AA EXP; 1W Emerald; HHonors Diamond; Marriott Gold; UA dirt

Posts: 7,941

This makes absolutely no sense. These were people who hadn't had a single piece of activity that could have generated a single mile of debit or credit to their AAdvantage account in 18 months. I fail to see how this represents a major risk to potential revenue.

I haven't seen AA's mission statement for their corporate security department. Have you? The mission of any corporate security department is to cut off and stamp out fraud and revenue loss - regardless of type. Seems like they're doing their jobs.

And it is in AAs T&Cs to go after hidden city ticketing if they so desire to do so. That is why a lot of frequent fliers don't do it because the ramifications of doing so are pretty high.