Points Reversals

[Dons83]

Has anyone ever had an instance where points that were incorrectly credited to your QFF account, through either an airline or a bank, have been reversed back to the source?

 

[mannej]

Yes - Everyday rewards had duplicated the QFF point earn towards the end of the original version, which they ended up reversing the earn. It is documented on here so it is definitely possible.

 

[GoldCanyon340]

I got that reversal of Everyday Rewards points.

 

[JohnK]

There have been a few other instances reported over the years. Most related to bonus points via a mistake or where they were not eligible. All ok if it's a dummy frequent flyer account.

 

[geoffb78]

I wonder how the reversal would work if the balance was nil at the time of (attempted?) reversal...?

 

[geoffb78]

What do you mean 'dummy frequent flyer account'?

 

[JohnK]

I wonder how the reversal would work if the balance was nil at the time of (attempted?) reversal...?

You would have a negative balance and unless you wanted to work hard to bring back to zero you would give up on that frequent flyer program until your account expired.

It was not uncommon for people to open up accounts in names that did not exist to get bonus points and then transfer to an account to use those points. Once used they would dump the frequent flyer accounts. There are some reports on AFF over the years. I don't remember the exact threads.

 

[RooFlyer]

I wonder how the reversal would work if the balance was nil at the time of (attempted?) reversal...?

Air Canada did this a few years ago. They did some sort of audit and determined (correctly, I think) that a whole bunch of people got a bonus, a year or so before, that they weren't entitled to. They took the points out of accounts with no announcement, or communication!. And IIRC, accounts with low balances did go into negative.

I was a reader of Flyer Talk back then, and it did make for an enjoyable read.

 

[burmans]

You would have a negative balance and unless you wanted to work hard to bring back to zero you would give up on that frequent flyer program until your account expired.

You do have a right to cancel a QFF account with no restrictions as far as I can tell (e.g. a negative balance)

 

[JohnK]

You do have a right to cancel a QFF account with no restrictions as far as I can tell (e.g. a negative balance)

I didn't know. Cancel an account and re-open a new account few days later? Sounds too easy.

 

[Applesmfc]

Is there ever any precedent that QANTAS may cancel existing award flights if your account goes into a negative balance?

 

[eric2011]

What do you mean 'dummy frequent flyer account'?

Its most probably best not to know

 

[Spongbob]

This happened a few times in the ASA days, but no real drama.

 

[N860CR]

The question is what will the airline do to accounts with large negative balances. Simply ignore it, or chase the owner?

 

[trippin_the_rift]

The question is what will the airline do to accounts with large negative balances. Simply ignore it, or chase the owner?

It's not like loyalty programs give you a line of credit as points. Although, this wouldn't be a bad way to monetize points (I talk about it briefly at https://www.markrs.co/the-perfect-frequent-flyer-program/ )

I would expect very few accounts to have negative balances. All part of operating a virtual currency.

I can also confirm merchants can 'remove' points from an account, as one of my businesses has agreements with a number of airlines and we can claw back points. However, all my points merchant agreements stress that we are to do our own fraud/risk mitigation when crediting points to a user account. So if we were to incorrectly credit an account (for example if we were to CREDIT instead of DEBIT an
account), we would need to wear the cost.

 

[N860CR]

My thinking is that if one has say a 200k negative balance, then you'd assume they've spent 200k that shouldn't have been there to begin with.

Does Qantas wear the loss (ie booked flights, gift cards etc) or chase someone for it (the consumer, or the merchant who clawed the points back?)