While a series of concurrent acts may be unrelated, it is reasonable to ask whether Air Canada has just launched a multi-prong war against what it views as fraud. But are the innocent travelers caught in the dragnet simply acceptable collateral damage?
Three Things Suggest A Concerted Effort To Stamp Out Fraud By Air Canada, Star Alliance
Let’s review the three pieces of news.
#1: ExpertFlyer Cuts Off Star Alliance Award Space
ExpertFlyer announced that it was removing seat alerts and upgrade inventory for a number of Star Alliance carriers, including:
- Air Canada
- Air China
- Air India
- Air New Zealand
- ANA – All Nippon Airways
- Asiana Airlines
- Austrian Airlines
- Avianca
- Avianca Costa Rica
- Brussels Airlines
- COPA
- Croatia Airlines
- Egyptair
- Ethiopian Airlines
- EVA Air
- LOT Polish Airlines
- Lufthansa
- SAS
- Shenzhen Airlines
- Singapore Airlines
- South African Airways
- SWISS
- TACA
Award searches and alerts on Vistara and Virgin Australia have also been removed. Both are Air Canada partners with award space searchable online.
ExpertFlyer blamed the problem on “issues in obtaining award and upgrade data.”
How ExpertFlyer obtained this space in the first place was questionable, likely via scraping other websites. One Mile At A Time suggests it came from United Airlines, but I tend to think ExpertFlyer was scraping on the Air Canada Aeroplan website. Scraping (the extraction of data from a website) is a process that pits airlines against companies like ExpertFlyer. Airlines claim it represents the misappropriation of information while scrapers insist that it is simply harvesting publicly-available information. In any case, the ExpertFlyer founder has denied Air Canada was the source:
The data source wasn’t AC, and I wouldn’t hold out any hope that it’s coming back, sorry.
— Chris Lopinto (@chrislopinto) October 7, 2023
This move greatly reduces the value proposition for ExeprtFlyer.
#2: Seats.Aero Shut Down
Air Canada sent a cease and desist letter to popular award search tool Seats.Aero, which quickly displays weeks worth of availability across a wide range of flights.
An Air Canada executive hinted at the cease and desist letter earlier in the week, lamenting that points brokers used that tool to snatch award space within minutes or even seconds of its opening to the detriment of most members. This undermines the program for the vast majority of travelers.
#3 Aeroplan Accounts Locked Due To Fraud Concerns
Air Canada is also taking a heavy-handed approach to suspected fraud by suspending accounts, sometimes with balances as high as one million points. It is not clear how the algorithm triggers such account freezes, but systems are now in place to recognize transfers from American Express to accounts whose names do not match the American Express cardholder (yes, until now you could simply put in the cardmember’s name, anyone’s number, and transfer to whatever account you wanted via American Express Membership Rewards).
These sorts of transfers undermine the benefits of the program for everyone, though I know that most people who book for other people are not guilty of selling points.
How Much Is Too Much?
Tools like Seats.Aero make it much easier for those engaged in the practice of selling miles and points to efficiently siphon award space from members who use the program without pecuniary incentives. While many used ExpertFlyer and Seats.Aero simply for their own travels, these tools were abused by some, which always seems to be the case when it comes to why we cannot have nice things.
The Aeroplan account closures are bit concerning in that the program has no restrictions against booking for other people. Flying Blue, the loyalty program for Air France/KLM, became incredibly overzealous in years past in cracking down on suspected fraud to the point in which travelers who recently opened a Flying Blue account and transferred in points from a flexible currency (or searched too often for award space) took on a great risk of account closure.
There is some suggestion that this is an alliance-wide effort across Star Alliance. That may well be the case, though these three specific instances above appear to be driven by Air Canada.
CONCLUSION
Two of these three items explicitly came from Air Canada and it is conceivable that the ExpertFlyer scraping also came from Air Canada, despite the denial from Chris Lopinto, suggesting the Canadian carrier is taking steps it views as necessary to protect the integrity of its program.
Star Alliance and its member carriers have every right to protect the integrity of their programs. I shed no tears for those who have made a business out of sniping award space using miles and points that are bartered or sold and now find themselves facing a quandary. But I do hope that the Air Canada dragnet has reasonable recourse options for those falsely accused of fraud. I also would love to see award alerts return, but not if it means that point brokers snipe the space within seconds.
Mark this story as developing.
Adria Airways? Did they have access to a time machine or something?
LOL. RIP Adria
…and Malev
…and Air Berlin
…and BMI
…and Flybe
Expert Flyer’s founder says Air Canada wasn’t the data source https://twitter.com/chrislopinto/status/1710472886589255849
That’s what he says. I am still not convinced. Space could certainly have been on United, as Ben suspects.
Seats.aero did NOT shutdown and said they would defy the order.
Hi Matthew, as another commenter mentions, we (Seats.aero) continue to retrieve Star Alliance availability, including from Air Canada, and do not intend to change this.
Not sure about Air Canada, but definitely a few explosions of hyperbole in your writing…
This is really interesting. While I use these sites legitimately myself if what Aeroplan is saying is true, it could explain so much of why space is verging on impossible to find further out and that we survive now on close in redemptions (the brokers cancel bookings used to block seats a few days out). If the case, I totally support this as it’s going to open up a lot more possibilities now for the rest of us.
Avianca and Ethiopian usually seem to have healthy levels of availability, they may not be the pinnacle of luxury but they do have flat seats and more than acceptable airport facilities for connecting itineraries (infinitely better than US airports without airside international connection facilities or LHR with its constant meltdowns). More opportunities to redeem on AC and Turkish would be very welcome though!
What’s the issue here? This seems like a good thing for a vast majority of people
Last month I booked a flight with my United miles on Air Canada; SFO-YUL for Jan 2024. But I have never booked my Air Canada miles with any other airline because I think, my flight must originate from Canada to use A/C miles (and the fact that I don’t have enough Aeroplan miles). Anyway so far so good. They won’t cancel my United flight hopefully.
To make a long story short, to use AEROPLAN MILES your flight must originate in Canada, if I’m correct.
What do you mean 9riginate in Canada? I have booked multiple flights with Aeroplan that were nowhere near Canada.
If they’re serious about cracking down on fraud and brokering then go after those things. Dont go after a tool that the vast majoroty of the time is the community, not brokers. This will not have a significant effect on fraudulent brokers for 2 reasons. 1. These brokers likely could build their own scrapping tool for the airlines and routes they frequently use. 2. They could use sweatshops in Bangladesh, Laos, or Cambodia and have 10 yo’s just manually searching day by day on the AC/UA website for 10 cents an hour. Remember, fraudulent brokering operations are run primarily out of PRC(mainland China) and India, respectively. In order to seriously crack down on fraud and brokering, North American carriers need to add a designee list as others have mentioned and BA has. You could add 2-6 people to this list with possible exceptions for immediate(parents, spouse, and children) family members and there will restrictions on how often you can change this list. Additionally, adding protection from bots that snipe seats the moment the calendar opens would be good as well. Remember, different people play the points and miles game differently, some of us are economy vs luxury, close in vs year out, point to point vs complex multi legs, visiting friends family vs aspirational vacations. Different people do things differently and as long as people stay within the rules there shouldnt be issues. They should go after actual fraud and brokering being committed instead of after tools that make this hobby, slightly easier. Alternatively, just make the search better. Also, AC is so concerned about a community tool that makes thing easier, yet they have no sense or urgency to stop blocking partners like Eva, Ana, Thai etc. Why spend hours on their site searching for partners they’re blocking when you can find out in 5 mins on seats.aero? Like come on.
At the same time they have started showing award space for flights to and from India on the app and website again. They took it down about a year ago because of fraud with people reselling seats, leaving the only option to book flight to from India the call centre with 2 hour hold times.
Instead of criticizing people who buy and sell points – which almost no court deems illegal, you go soft on the real extortion racketeers: the airlines.
An anemic, spineless piece.
I hope all your accounts get shut down.
If that’s directed at me, shame on you, Matthew. At what point did I say I was any kind of broker? I don’t buy or sell miles.
I merely made a comment arguing that people who do aren’t the villains. The villains are the galactic empire, aka the airlines. For you not to condemn airlines’ actions over the years in the way they have fleeced, rinsed and cheated their loyal customers reeks of apologism. The relentless way they have pursued members of the public who have spent thousands and thousands keeping these airline “revenue protection” jobsworths employed simply because they might have sold some of their hard-earned points is akin to the travel industry equivalent of a McCarthyite witch hunt. And like McCarthyism, in the end almost no court sides with their draconian, dictatorial stance.
The irony is had the airlines simply allowed people to buy and sell points, they would have probably ended up saving millions, but through sheer short-sighted greed, they have only made the problem worse and alienated their customer base.
I’d go even further: airlines got away with charging almost beyond-belief prices for premium class tickets for years, mark-ups and profiteering which you had to rub your eyes at. Good for the black market mileage brokers – no matter whether it was intended or not – to enable people who would never otherwise be able to travel up front to do so, and over time drag the airlines to lower premium class fares.
So instead of simply condemning what is a complicated and multilayered black market, and making prejudicial, knee-jerk comments here, perhaps consider looking at the root problem in depth, why it exists, how the airlines are more culpable than any smalltime broker, and how a completely different approach is needed to resolve it.
Then again, perhaps if you had any real interest in the flyer’s side of this, rather than simply dothing your cap to the empire, you might already have done so.