Told to "go to airport" to book award ticket

Old May 16, 2015, 2:38 am
  #16  
 
Join Date: Oct 2014
Location: TMP
Programs: TK Elite Plus, AY Gold, FB Gold, BT VIP
Posts: 81
Originally Posted by carnarvon
Profile says he/she holds 6.000.000 miles and is unable to use them.
How does one acquire that kind of mileage? By buying a shipyard with AMEX?
aufmatt is offline  
Old May 17, 2015, 5:22 am
  #17  
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: London
Posts: 17,007
Originally Posted by aufmatt
How does one acquire that kind of mileage? By buying a shipyard with AMEX?
Pay your own business's expenses with Amex.
Calchas is offline  
Old May 17, 2015, 6:59 am
  #18  
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Hong Kong, France
Programs: FB , BA Gold
Posts: 15,496
Originally Posted by Calchas
Pay your own business's expenses with Amex.
Given the periodic devaluations of all FFPs, it does not make sense to store that kind of amount (6 million). But getting into bartering those miles is not a great idea either. And giving them to the relatives of a brother seem to involve a lot of hassle.
brunos is online now  
Old May 17, 2015, 2:33 pm
  #19  
 
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: France
Programs: FB Plat for Life, UAMP, BAEC, Accor ALL Platinum, Marriott silver, Hilton, Meli silver.
Posts: 3,105
Originally Posted by brunos
Given the periodic devaluations of all FFPs, it does not make sense to store that kind of amount (6 million). But getting into bartering those miles is not a great idea either. And giving them to the relatives of a brother seem to involve a lot of hassle.
Indeed, spend as you earn is the way to go!

Waiting means the value of your miles will drop.

If someone is unable to spend 6,000,000 miles, he/she has an issue that must be addressed before doing anything else.

Last edited by carnarvon; Aug 9, 2017 at 3:30 am
carnarvon is offline  
Old May 17, 2015, 5:47 pm
  #20  
Original Poster
 
Join Date: May 2015
Location: New York City
Programs: DL Gold, *A Gold, 1mm+ miles on both BA and VS
Posts: 9
I thought I'd take a second here to update you all on what I learned.

Thanks to JohnnyRockets pointing me to a similar, older thread, I found a very useful blog post by Gary Leff about this exact issue.

Gary had actually spoken to a spokesperson from Air France who agreed that "an airport ticketing requirement is not appropriate for the US market as so many people live so far from Air France ticket counters". I reached out to Gary via email and he was kind enough to give me the email of someone at Air France who was actually trying to put a stop to this.

Today I tried again, making the exact same reservation online, preparing to see the dreaded error message, but instead... it went right through!

I don't know what else has changed... the Flying Blue account is now a whole four days old, so maybe that helped, or maybe Air France really did turn off this draconian "fraud detection" algorithm. But for what it's worth, I did get the flight reserved and ticketed.

By the way, while I was going through this process, I discovered something that surprised me, which some members here might find helpful:

* When I navigated directly to flyingblue.com and signed in, then chose "Book an Award Ticket", I got taken to the Air France UK site (the URL was airfrance.co.uk and it said United Kingdom in red on the left). At this point when I looked for availability on the flights I was interested in, the only seats available were for 42,500 miles (outbound) and 81,250 miles (inbound).

* However if I switched to the Air France USA site and searched for the exact same route, I found availability at 25,000 miles (outbound) and 42,500 miles (inbound) ... a huge savings.

I don't know if there's a general rule about different availability from different versions of the website (US vs UK) but I wasn't expecting such a big difference.
leafnyc is offline  
Old Jun 27, 2017, 10:03 pm
  #21  
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Programs: AA MM PP, MR LT Plat, Globalist
Posts: 991
Still an issue?

My friend will transfer Chase points into his new FB account and book an award for me. Would this be an issue for a one-way Europe award (12,500 miles) ?

I saw a post from 10 years ago where someone saw less award availability when booking an award for someone else. Is this still the case?
eethan is offline  
Old Jun 28, 2017, 12:53 am
  #22  
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Netherlands
Programs: KL Platinum; A3 Gold
Posts: 28,550
Originally Posted by eethan
My friend will transfer Chase points into his new FB account and book an award for me. Would this be an issue for a one-way Europe award (12,500 miles) ?
It most likely will, yes.

I would investigate other uses of the points.
irishguy28 is offline  
Old Jun 28, 2017, 2:03 pm
  #23  
 
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: IAH
Posts: 488
Originally Posted by irishguy28
It most likely will, yes.

I would investigate other uses of the points.
I will back this up - there is a thread started by myself about this from a few months ago, exactly the same experience. It's just extremely hard for me to get to an AF/KL office. If you are interested, the resolution was putting the reservation on hold every two days until I was in AMS approximately a month later. Booked a transatlantic J ticket on points as well while I was there
Productivity is offline  
Old Aug 8, 2017, 8:44 pm
  #24  
 
Join Date: Apr 2001
Posts: 1,223
I had a similar problem booking tickets for myself(!) from TLV to Moscow. I was told it was to prevent credit card fraud, which sounds absolutely stupid since I wanted to use the same credit card I had used many times below to purchase tickets and pay taxes/fees on awards with KLM/AF. (not to mention that my account was open for more than 10 years). They insisted I come to the airport to ticket it, which was impossible for me.

The agent also refused to connect me to a supervisor, claiming "We aren't allowed to do that."

I had around 100k FB points in my account and finally I asked him to close my FB account and cancel all my points, because I would never fly AF/KL again. The agent told me he also couldnt do that and I should send a letter. I hung up and called again and got another agent who told me the same story. This agent however said that I could request a callback from a supervisor. A few hours later the same agent called me back and said the supervisor had authorized them to issue the ticket over the phone as a "one time courtesy".

If this stupidity will continue I really will cancel my FB account and never fly AF/KLM again.
lewinr is offline  
Old Aug 9, 2017, 12:54 am
  #25  
 
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: France
Programs: FB Plat for Life, UAMP, BAEC, Accor ALL Platinum, Marriott silver, Hilton, Meli silver.
Posts: 3,105
Originally Posted by lewinr
I had a similar problem booking tickets for myself(!) from TLV to Moscow. (...) (not to mention that my account was open for more than 10 years).(...)
There must be more to your story.

Until now all such problems related here were with just-opened FB accounts with no flight activity and bank points transferred with the exact amount for the award.

Worst case scenario for the poster was if the award was for a third party.

I do not recall any report of trouble issuing award tickets with miles coming form an old established FB account credited with miles coming from flight activity.

Last edited by carnarvon; Aug 9, 2017 at 3:35 am
carnarvon is offline  
Old Aug 9, 2017, 5:17 am
  #26  
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Netherlands
Programs: KL Platinum; A3 Gold
Posts: 28,550
Originally Posted by lewinr
I was told it was to prevent credit card fraud, which sounds absolutely stupid since I wanted to use the same credit card I had used many times below to purchase tickets and pay taxes/fees on awards with KLM/AF. (not to mention that my account was open for more than 10 years). They insisted I come to the airport to ticket it, which was impossible for me.

The agent also refused to connect me to a supervisor, claiming "We aren't allowed to do that."

I had around 100k FB points in my account and finally I asked him to close my FB account and cancel all my points, because I would never fly AF/KL again. The agent told me he also couldnt do that and I should send a letter.
None of us can comment on the reasons why your transaction was flagged as suspicious, or why the agent may have had reason to suspect that s/he wasn't talking to the cardholder and intending passenger; I have held an Amex card for 10 years and it has been used in several fraudulent transactions over the years; the amount of time I have held that card [and its subsequent replacements], or an unseen person's ability to quote my card details over the phone or online, doesn't mean that no fraud can ever occur on that card.

Flying Blue is a frequent flyer programme, and although FB makes no restrictions on the residence of its members, nor places any requirement to accrue a certain number of sectors on either AF or KL to obtain status, it doesn't seem *too* onerous an obligation to ask a frequent flyer to pop by an airport ticket desk every once in a while. If the alternative is making it so much easier for people to skim other people's FB accounts, then I am all for it.

However, and granted that we may all be prone to occasional piques of rage from time to time, asking verbally to have your account closed and all miles forfeited is INCREDIBLY SUSPICIOUS. Why would a person who apparently couldn't convince FB sufficiently of their identity then be allowed to close that very same account? It is a condition of FB (as I imagine it is of most, if not all, frequent flyer programmes) that notices of termination must be in writing - precisely to prevent such instances of people having their accounts closed by others. And if you WERE the owner of the account, why would you willingly throw away such a comparatively large amount of miles, rather than, say, donating them to charity? At least that way, someone other than just Flying Blue would get the "benefit" of your tantrum.
irishguy28 is offline  
Old Aug 9, 2017, 6:22 am
  #27  
 
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: France
Programs: FB Plat for Life, UAMP, BAEC, Accor ALL Platinum, Marriott silver, Hilton, Meli silver.
Posts: 3,105
Originally Posted by irishguy28
None of us can comment on the reasons why your transaction was flagged as suspicious, or why the agent may have had reason to suspect that s/he wasn't talking to the cardholder and intending passenger; (...).
I don't get the OP's story.

Since when do the merchant (FB in this case) flag a CC transaction as "suspicious"?

The merchant asks for an authorisation code to the CC issuer. Once he gets it, he goes ahead with the transaction. This is in actual fact done all automatically without human intervention.

If Amex has a suspicion, they won't issue the authorisation code and contact the card holder for further verification. Such CC verifications are none of FB's business.

What FB cares about is if the FB account is not hacked, if the miles are not bartered or anything to do with the fraudulent use of FB account and miles.

CC matters are for the card issuer to deal with.
carnarvon is offline  
Old Aug 9, 2017, 6:28 am
  #28  
 
Join Date: Mar 2016
Location: CPT,AMS
Posts: 4,409
Originally Posted by carnarvon
I don't get the OP's story.

Since when do the merchant (FB in this case) flag a CC transaction as "suspicious"?
It is not unheard of from airlines to ask to present the card at the airport at the day of travel for paid ticket.
Even if the CC company authorized the payment, the owner of the card can still claim it is a fraudulent transaction even several months later and issue a chargeback.
Ditto is offline  
Old Aug 9, 2017, 6:32 am
  #29  
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Netherlands
Programs: KL Platinum; A3 Gold
Posts: 28,550
Originally Posted by carnarvon
I don't get the OP's story.

Since when do the merchant (FB in this case) flag a CC transaction as "suspicious"?
You appear to be coming at this from a different angle.

The issue is that, for whatever reason, FB were not satisfied as to the identity of the person on the phone. (And, it is must be acknowledged that being able to quote the Flying Blue number and associated PIN, and the credit card details previously used with that account [and possibly stored with the Flying Blue account] does not necessarily confirm the identity of the voice on the phone line).

The passenger was asked to present themselves in person at an airport ticket desk, where their identity could be verified.

As I said previously, being able to quote a credit card number, CVC, expiry date, name, etc, online or over the phone does not mean that the transaction cannot later turn out to be fraudulent when reported as such by the actual cardholder.
irishguy28 is offline  
Old Aug 9, 2017, 6:34 am
  #30  
 
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: SJJ/AMS
Posts: 4,635
Originally Posted by irishguy28
I have held an Amex card for 10 years and it has been used in several fraudulent transactions over the years
That sounds pretty hapless? I've had one since 1999 and never (touch wood) experienced anything like that.

G
AlicorporateUK is offline  

Thread Tools
Search this Thread

Contact Us - Manage Preferences - Archive - Advertising - Cookie Policy - Privacy Statement - Terms of Service -

This site is owned, operated, and maintained by MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. Copyright © 2024 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. All rights reserved. Designated trademarks are the property of their respective owners.