Customers buying merchandise entirely with miles is often the least desirable use of miles from an airline's perspective, but these awards are provided to make the programs more attractive. With merchandise, the airline has costs of a cent per point or so, where the cost of providing a marginal seat can be considerably less. Depending on how the airline accounts for the cost of miles issued for flying, the cost of redemption for non-flight awards can be considerably higher than the liability accrued when the miles were flown. As the airline accrues a liability equal to the price paid for miles by partners (e.g., credit card companies), the weighted average price of a mile is considerably higher than the what the airline records the cost of miles awarded for flying. This higher average is what allows airlines to offer merchandise awards without recording a loss when miles are redeemed for merchandise, but they're still not big fans of them (which is why some like United restrict merchandise and "any flight" awards to credit card holders--who are bringing in the "higher value" points--and elite members).

Note that this doesn't apply to credit card programs like Membership Rewards, who usually pay less for merchandise than they do to an airline to buy points.

-m

 

I have read all these replies to loyalmatch's founder and what I find annoying is that no one seems to care that airlines are essentially telling us what to do with our miles, and this really bugs me. So I thought I'd do the unthinkable and encourage all of you to give selling your miles a shot, I guarantee you'll feel much better after the first time, and so will your finances. Here are a few sites: www.craigslist.org, www.flyhub.com, www.sellingmiles.com, www.loyalmatch.com,www.ebay.com. Don't let these airlines intimidate you, you earn these miles you do as you wish with them: sell them.


I spend my life on airplane, my job demands it, so I always end with a ridiculously high number of miles that I can never use, because I travel so much for work, I tend to stay home for my vacation. Let me just say that my company always fly me first class and pays a fortune for these tickets, so the airlines make a lot of money already. In return I earn miles and not only do airlines make it nearly impossible to book the dates one wants for a decent amount of miles, but they also impose this absurd rule that states that we cannot dispose of the miles we OWN in whatever way we choose. Sure we can give them away, but god forbid should we ever make money by selling them, they will punish us. And we all accept our fate.

Am I the only one who sees something wrong here. Who the hell are they to tell us what to do with something we own? Don't they make enough money as it is? Don't they charge us an arm and a leg for a ticket already? I really hope someday soon someone actually sues them for daring to tell people what to do with their own property, that what should be illegal. Airlines should not be allowed or get away with threatening people selling their miles.

Has anyone ever tried to issue a ticket with their miles? I once did just that: I tried to get a friend a ticket and it was a nightmarish experience. So, guess what I do with my miles now? I SELL them! that's right, I no longer waste them as I once did, now I make a lot of extra cash selling them. I have been for the past years. First on www.craigslist.org, then on www.ebay.com, then on a site like www.flyhub.com and now I will also give www.loyalmatch.com a shot.

Is it illegal? NO, and if the airlines could make it illegal they would have a long time ago. Think about it.
Could you get in trouble if you got caught? YES, but for example, sites like flyhub have a very strict privacy policy. They allow frequent flyers to buy and sell miles or issue tickets without ever exposing either the buyer or the seller, not even to one another. It's the stubhub of airline tickets, so you never have to worry about getting caught and the airline have absolutely no way of knowing who sold what.

Loyalmatch.com might have a similar policy, not sure, never used them. But I'll definitely check it out and start using it to. In short I'm really getting sick and tired of these greedy and controlling airlines, and I think it is time we end this nonsense. I take pride in fighting back by making money from my miles, and I will continue to do that.

I encourage you all to do the same: sell your miles, and do so in a way that protects your interest, in the shadow of any company that is willing to protect your identity.

 

FWIW, the webinar about the program is today at 2pm EST/11am PST. If you are interested but didn't get the email from them PM me and I'll forward you the info. Should be an interesting call.

 

So I just participated in the webinar/call. Brad spent an hour going over the program and the way it works and what they actually do. After listening to him and getting to ask a few questions directly I have a MUCH better understanding of what is going on and I firmly believe that every transaction that they broker is legitimate within the eyes of the programs, at least as much as I can with only having read the T&C for a handful of the ~400 programs they have in their system.

Here's the catch - they do NOT allow the barter of reward travel. Period. No upgrades, travel certificates, reward tickets. Zip. Zilch. Nada. If you replace the word "reward" with "merchandise" in loyaltymatch's initial response you'll get a better feeling for that. And it just so happens that pretty much every program that has a merchandise redemption option allows for the bartering/trading of those products. So the program is legit.

One thing that was not particularly clear from the website but that was clarified in the call is that they only allow for the listing/trading of products in their catalog. You as a member cannot create an open-ended listing of any sort. This is how they limit the trading of items that are not supposed to be bartered/traded/sold.

There are two different types of transactions that the site offers. The first is for everyone, member or not, and is a straight link into the merchandise shopping portals. Since that stuff is available anyways, albeit without their pretty decent search facility, they don't charge for that.

The second transaction type is a barter/exchange deal. As a member I would note how many points I have in various programs. Should someone come along and decide that they want an iPod they could register for that product. The system knows that Bluestar Airlines has iPods available for 50K points and that I have 200K points in the program because I've registered that information with them. I would get an alert and would have the option of buying the iPod with my points and taking the cash that the buyer offers to me or taking some other merchandise that they might redeem using their points in another program. For that luxury there is a CDN$1.99 charge per transaction.

There is currently no guarantee that the people you are dealing with will actually deliver and if they don't the company is not involved in resolving the dispute. They are looking into offering some sort of 3rd party insurance but that will be a future option. They are also planning on implementing a feedback system to allow buyers/sellers to be rated for reliability, etc.

My takeaway from the call was that there was some confusion here about the way the program works and what a "reward" really is, and that is now clear in my mind. Based on that I think the program is legit. I don't think that it is a great value, as the redemption rates are on average no better than what are seen elsewhere, hovering around a penny/point for most programs. But the program isn't encouraging or even allowing transactions that would violate program T&Cs, at least from my read.

 

Thanks for taking the time to clarify this for us all Sbm12. It's not a bad program actually. I kinda like the idea. I like to keep my options open so now I can add loyaltymatch to my list of brokers. the sites that I use are completely different in that I actually get cash for my miles/tickets both on sellingmiles.com and on flyhub.com, but now that I also have the option of buying merchandise, I'll give it a shot. It might make a lot of sense for me to do this too.

 

well after sbm13's explanation it doesn't sound like that bad of a site. maybe i'll go check it out sometime then

 

Brad, there is this guy on flyertalk who attended your meeting and had a lot of good things to say about your program, so I checked it out and liked it. Here's my question though. I currently sell my miles on www.flyhub.com . One of the thing that I like about them, customer service and customer satisfaction is their religion. So my question to you is, now that I want to use your service in addition to flyhub, how does your customer service compare to that of flyhub. One thing I can never stand with online companies is poor service. Please let me know. Also, I think I understand the difference between flyhub and loyalty rather well, but can you just confirm what you see as the main differences.

 

Brad, I still have not heard back from you. I did go to your website and liked what I saw, not sure about the responsiveness of the CEO though :- ) Please answer my questions when you get a moment. I'd like to do as much business on your site as I do on Flyhub, Craigslist and sellingmiles.com

 

flyerd, all reasonable indications are that loyaltymatch was a drive-by poster (analogous to a drive by shooter). He registered for an FT account in order to post to this thread to invite people to his Web conference, and probably won't ever come back to post, though he may be lurking still.

If you're so determined to go do business on his site, THEN GO DO BUSINESS ON HIS SITE, AND BE DONE WITH IT.

 

While I do not believe that loyaltymatch will be back on here posting away, I wouldn't use the term "drive-by poster" to describe him. I think that they just don't see the need or value in using FT to promote their organization, particularly since doing so is a murky endeavor relative to the FT ToS. Based on my conversation with him I have no qualms about stating that I believe them to be a legitimate and viable option for what they do.

@flyerd: I have no idea what you expect of their customer service. They are only a broker that serves to connect people together. In that regard, I'm not sure what you would really depend on their customer service for. They are not going to be shipping you anything, guaranteeing delivery of anything or following up for you on anything. What customer service do you expect? Lost password assistance?

The main difference that I can see between Loyalty Match and the other sites is that LM limits the things you can sell to a very specific and defined catalog. Keep that in mind should you choose to pursue that option.

 

Per the OP:

"I saw the ad on Flyertalk for this program- Loyalty Match."

If they are allowed to advertise here, doesn't that imply they meet the TOS?
Or is there a disconnect between the FT revenue stream and the posting process?

Not trying to stir something up, just curious.

FWIW
DLM

 

Ads and posting on FT are completely two different things.

I believe FT TOS governs registered FTers, not how HOM runs the ad. If you have time to spare, you may find the exchange in the following Technical Issues thread had addressed your question (by posters and Randy himself):

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/techn...ads-right.html

 

Correct, except that InternetBrands, not HOM runs the ads now. The details on the FT TOS for commercial posting can be found here. My interpretation is that they are welcome to answer questions, but shilling for the company isn't appropriate. And my conversation with the buy led me to believe that they weren't coming back anyways, certainly not to spend a lot of time here.

 

lin821 and sbm12,

Thanks for the info. Make perfect sense to me.

Cheers,

DLM

 

smb12, I concur, and did not mean with my use of the "drive-by poster" phase that LoyaltyMatch is somehow illegitimate. For example, in my posting earlier in this thread with my 30-second elevator pitch description of the company, I implied that I thought they had a legitimate business model that might actually pass muster, even though it didn't offer me personally much value that I would choose to take advantage of.

As for FT TOS, I'd be heavily annoyed if a company representative were to jump into all sorts of threads suggesting that his or her company's offerings were just a perfect match for what somebody is looking for, but I'd be pleased if a company were to maintain a presence on a thread specifically started about that company, such as this thread, for example. loyaltymatch can even use FT's feature to subscribe to the thread so that he doesn't have to keep polling the thread to see if there are any new posts, so it'd be easy. Still, I doubt he'll be back....