

Hacking Frequent Flyer Programs (video) - rabble
http://anarchogeek.com/2011/03/24/ignite-oscon-2010-hacking-frequent-flyer-programs/

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doctororange
I remember when 'flybuys' first came out in Australia they had neglected to
handle cases where goods were returned. Trampoline sales (and returns) went
through the roof!

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eob
Flying to Thailand and spending an entire week taking $18 flights back and
forth between two cities seems like a pretty incredible cost to pay for First
Class seats for a year.

I suppose if I was a consultant and flew every week, I might feel differently,
but I was pretty surprised at how much (in non monetary units) you have to pay
to get "cheap" upgrades.

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lachyg
I watched a documentary about this, and the guy that discovered this deal
employed 8 or 10 locals to fly this route for 8-10 hours a day. He then got a
call from the ATO, or some department similar because that was a common drug
route, and the agent interrogating him asked him to set him up with it too!

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eob
You can get frequent flyer points even if you're not the one in the seat? I
always thought that points weren't transferrable.

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nck4222
I've been looking in to this recently and the point he makes about flying
crazy routes to get extra miles is a little off. It may work for some
airlines, but I know for others you earn miles for how far your start and end
points are apart from each other, not how long your route actually was.

So if you're flying Los Angeles to Seattle, but have a layover in Miami, you
would only earn the miles that someone flying Los Angeles to Seattle would.

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pinko
Interesting, but this isn't true for any of the major US carriers (e.g, UA/CO,
AA, DL), so I don't think it undermines his presentation.

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bengl3rt
Cool - this is exactly what we're working on over at mileagebrain.com.

It is a system, and it can be hacked - I figured it quite likely that the
hacker crowd would be interested in this (like I am).

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kovar
And, once hacked, the airlines will plug the hole you're exploiting and there
goes (part of) your business model.

Is building a business on a loophole that can easily be plugged wise?

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eljaco
Anyone know what kind of credit score ding one would take for opening and
canceling cards (as suggested in the video)?

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jond2062
Credit scoring is relative and the magnitude for which most actions affect
different people can vary significantly. However, directionally speaking, you
may see a negative effect on your score from "churning" cards due to the
following:

1) Lowering your average age of accounts. All else equal, if you have 2 credit
cards open, one that you've had for 8 years and one that you've had for 6
years, the average age would obviously be 7. If you proceed to open a dozen
airline cards in one year (regardless of whether you close them or not), your
average age would plummet and could negatively impact your score.

2) Each time you apply for credit or a loan, a "hard inquiry" shows up on your
credit report and can negatively impact your score. The scoring system is
designed to account for multiple inquiries in a short period of time to allow
people to shop around for a mortgage or auto loan by grouping them as one
inquiry (as long as they are done in a 30-45 day period). This is not the case
for credit or store card applications.

3) In addition to simply applying for credit, having numerous recently open
accounts and newly available credit is also perceived as a risk and can lower
your score.

The above being said, you may or may not experience a significant hit on your
score through "churning." Don't assume that because someone else did it
without any negative impacts that the same will be true for you. If you will
be applying for a mortgage in the near future, I would advise against it. For
everyone else, YMMV.

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rabble
Most folks who churn already have a mortgage or some don't care about
maintaining a really high credit score. I was mostly talking about what you
can do, what people do, not what you maybe should do.

American Airlines and Citicards right now will give you between 75,000 and
100,000 miles for opening a new card. That's a free round trip business class
ticket to europe/asia/south america. $10,000 in flights for opening a card.

Mostly people churn to try and get life time status, it's how people get
status without BIS, Butt In Seat miles flown.

I personally get status mostly by flying crazy routes, Uruguay to South Africa
via New York and London. I also focus on purchasing tickets which will earn me
maximum miles, but for flights i'd fly anyway.

