How (you can't) cheat airline loyalty programs
We are the people of the made the law found the deception, and imagine if we do not try to cheat loyalty programs. [...]
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We are the people of made the law found the deception, and imagine if we don't try to rip off loyalty programs. One of the articles that continues, year after year, to make so many reads is the one in which I explain All the tricks that don't work to cheat hotel chain loyalty programs and I realized that I had never done an episode devoted to frequent flyers.
Needless to say, we Italians are the "last" arrivals in this world. Americans have been chewing points and miles since the late 1980s, so all the ploys we can think of have already been put into practice by our American cousins and all the bugs have been worked out by the companies.
The mileage runs to score lots of points
Let's start with the good news. One of the "tricks" which is then nothing illegal is to Flying only to accumulate status through mileage runs, that is, taking flights specifically to maximize the collection of qualifying points to obtain/renew the level in a frequent flyer program.
I have told about some of my "mileage runs" for example of when I I took the longest way to get to Hawaii, or how I flew in Brazil, passing through Mexico, just to accumulate XP points.. When, for example, Lufthansa presented the redesign of Miles&More all of us sick we had thrown ourselves into studying how to "cheat" the program, and indeed LH When he gave the final details had "plugged" the initial flaws.
Of course, there is also the "mattress race" in hotel chain loyalty program key.
Turning instead to tricks or contrivances here are the most common ones that, needless to say, do not work.
Putting one's card number out to friends and relatives
It does not matter whether you fly together with your wife or friends, you will not be able to put your card number in the reservation of 12 tickets And hope that everyone's points will be credited to one account.
Of course, the same applies if a cousin flies and is asked to put in a different card number than the person flying. Of course one can try, but defeat is assured.
Apply for dual credit
This is a very subtle strategy and involves the user after flying a route with airline X and accumulating points on the airline's program, applying for retro-credit to a partner program.
Americans call this practice "double dip or double dipping." and of course it is forbidden by all programs except in special cases such as the possibility of some programs allowing you to accumulate miles and points on a second program. For example. Air France KLM with Accor o Emirates with Marriott and vice versa.
It is good to remember that loyalty program systems are linked together to check status and properly handle charges, It is easy for a program to notice this activity and catch the scamming user out.
Checking in is not enough, you have to fly
For all those who might think. "but some things you make up?" I respond by saying that there is no limit to the made-in-Italy "cheating" fantasy. Checking in and not showing up for boarding will not trigger accumulation of points, but it will probably cause the plane to leave late.
Even in the case of a non-cancelable ticket, it is good to remember that if you don't travel you can get back airport taxes, which in a cordo/mid-range ticket are often higher than the fare, so I don't recommend it.
Skiplaggin angers companies
This is a very common practice in the U.S., where the companies' business policies are very different from those back home. Boarding a multi-stop flight, checking in all the way to your destination, and then not making connections will invalidate the itinerary, create inconvenience, and will not accrue points.
It is the same situation as checking in and not showing up, it matters little if you have flown a piece or not flown at all, it will only accumulate when you fly.
Creating fake "family groups"
One of the features of loyalty programs most prone to scams and most closely watched is the mileage pooling among relatives. Designed to allow real families to be able to accumulate their points, it has been used by frequent flyers as a shortcut to cheat programs. See what happened in recent days at United.
Saying this is not me but was the former #1 of American Airlines (which to date does not have family pooling) who when asked specifically in 2020 replied, "We don't know how to avoid secondary markets and games."
The modus operandi often involves that you Take advantage of the ability to transfer points between "relatives" for free and also overcoming any limits of simple transfer between members. Too bad that the "members" of these groups are not relatives, but often blockheads who are used only to convey points transferred from other programs (e.g., transfer from membership rewards).
This above is a chat with a TFC reader who, just because of suspicious use of the familiar pooling function had had more than 1mln points frozen for more than 6 months.
This situation has led many programs to limit, for example, the number of adults who can participate in the family group or to make group creation complicated. For example. Qatar requires interested parties to prove that they live at the same address. As always if you pull too hard eventually the game breaks down and everyone who has always behaved correctly loses out.
What is at risk
Several readers have written to me who are banned from loyalty programs, others who have had thousands of points "pulverized" on their credit cards. My advice is not to even try unless you are willing to lose everything And to no longer be able to accumulate.
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