American Airlines Is Sending Out Shut Down Emails – First Wave
The top news of the past week or so has been the American Airlines account shutdowns. I shared the first reports of it in Around the Web a few weeks ago. Danny the Deal Guru then wrote about it last week as more data points came out.
People were calling the 1-800 number to see if they would be automatically redirected after entering in their account info. This meant that your account was locked and under review but no one knew exactly what that meant, until now at least. American Airlines is sending out shut down emails. This appears to be the first wave, that coincides with the first wave of accounts being locked.
UPDATE: A Second Wave Of Emails Has Gone Out
What Do The Letters Say?
If you want to read the entire letter Doctor of Credit has a copy of it on their site. The quick and short of it says the following:
- Your account has been found to be in violation of the program’s terms.
- This means that any award tickets that have been purchased are void since they were bought with miles that were not properly earned.
- The person’s account has also been shut down and any miles in the account have been confiscated.
- These changes were made effective December 5th (about the time of the first wave of locked accounts)
I would assume this is a lifetime ban on earning American Airlines miles as well but I am sure people will try ways to set up new accounts. It remains to be seen if American is able to combat that or not.
Final Thoughts
This is a massive blow since American Airlines miles were a favorite for people flying to Asia among other redemptions. They have become more valuable domestically recently with their web special sales as well.
I think most of this stems from people using targeted mailers that were not intended for them. I wouldn’t be surprised if selling miles or booking flights for other people is a part of this as well.
This also means that people that had their accounts locked last week will most likely be getting the same email in the next week or two. Hopefully people affected are able to find alternate flights for anything they already had booked.
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The letter in DoC’s post was sent on 12/5 – nothing new. Nothing sent since.
Pigs get fat, swines slaughtered, and all that…
This is the effect of MSing abuse and boasting in blogs proudly abou that ?
I respect MTM since you guys seem to be the ones not encouraging about MSing the MO way while certain sites which I dont want to mention are only abt MSing through MO in tons. I wish people who still think MSing th MO way saying it is not illegal realize that these actions are not taken as a token of appreciation and not being illegal does not mean it is right.
Again only my thoughts. No offense to anyone.
I learned to live a pretty clean life with AA. I got a letter in the days before email telling me if I ever sold another mile all miles would be gone. I had worked for a company that always flew us 1st class and lots of segments back in the day when that counted for something. I had more miles than I could use, or give away to family, so someone contacted me about selling miles. I sold enough to buy a Nissan Maxima. Then the AA letter came. Haven’t sold a mile since. Haven’t even done any MS with AA.
I’m a bit confused. MS should be fine on AA cards right? That’s not an AA problem, but rather a Citi problem.
This is more about the welcome offers being abused.
@Mark – That’s why I was confused about the MS comment.
I think John has just been extra cautious on everything because of the letter he got from AA in the past.
A Nissan Maxima – that is a lot of miles John 🙂
* WAVE, not waive. Proofreading is your friend!
Dang it – updated, thanks