Can Airline Miles Be Sold?
Let’s say you’re browsing the black market for password leaks when you come across a bunch of airline miles. Interesting, you think, I also have a few airline miles that I would like to sell! How should I do it? “
It is not prohibited to sell miles in yourself, according to CreditCards.com , assuming they belong to you. The cops aren’t going to knock your door down if you sell a few miles to a guy online. But it is risky and should be avoided:
If you want to transfer points to someone you have met online, you must actually buy a ticket for them and trust that they will refund your money.
And since loyalty programs prohibit the sale or redemption of points if the airline catches you, they have the right to exclude you from their program, cancel your tickets and demand payment.
The loyalty programs themselves prohibit the sale of miles (authorized sites such as points.com allow you to convert miles from one loyalty program to another). If you sell them and get caught, you could be fined: One AAdvantage member was reportedly fined 500,000 miles last year for selling his over the course of several years.
This is why, as CreditCards.com points out, in order to sell your miles, you’ll need to buy a ticket for a stranger (or whoever you’re selling to) and ask them to send you a payment. If you’ve ever bought anything online from random, you know this is n’t an ideal security situation . Scams abound – if they disappear with your miles, you’re out of luck. And even if it works and you get your money, the airline can still punish you if it finds out.
“More and more sophisticated tools are being used to detect unusual activity (such as expensive awards in the name of someone you don’t know) and your account could be blocked if you are caught,” says the Points Guy . “When that happens, you will most likely walk away with nothing, all your rewards will be lost.”
However, you can share miles with a spouse or family member , depending on the program, without making a profit. Stick to it because of the guy you met on the Facebook Marketplace.