I've posted this in the ANA forum as well. The terms and conditions of the MR program allow transfers to authorized user frequent-flier accounts, and my sister is an AU on my account. (Starting next month, AUs will have to been on the account for 90 days before transfers can be made.)
I am planning a trip to Argentina with my daughter and niece. I saw Copa availability in biz on the dates that I want, and ANA charges 88,000 MR for that RT, while Aeroplan would charge 110,000 for the RT. ANA Mileage Club only allows members to use miles for immediate family members, so I decided to transfer 176k into my ANA account, and then link to my sister's ANA account, transfer 88k into it, and let her book the flight for my niece.
When I tried to make the transfer to my sister's ANA account, I got the following message: "This action will not be completed because of an attempt to sell or otherwise transfer Membership Reward points to someone else which is not permitted under the terms and conditions of the program."
Of course, I am not selling points, and I have never done so. After trying to resolve this with Amex, I was eventually told by a supervisor in the MR fraud department that ANA had labeled the transaction as suspected fraud, and I finally got a call from ANA which says that they only accept Amex MR transfers from the primary Amex cardholder into ANA accounts, so their system sees what I tried to do as fraud. Of course, this is outrageous. That is not at all what the Amex terms and conditions are, and of course, Amex should let its members know that, and they should not allow them to connect AUs to ANA accounts, etc.
So, OK, I thought, now I'll just transfer to Aeroplan and pay the extra 22k to get my niece's ticket, right? No. Now Amex won't let that transaction go through -- it gives me that same error message. And the people at the Amex fraud concern department can't fix it. I've literally spent hours on the phone with them today. The last guy had me delink and then relink my Aeroplan account, and then try the transfer, and that still didn't work.
I'm angry now.
I am planning a trip to Argentina with my daughter and niece. I saw Copa availability in biz on the dates that I want, and ANA charges 88,000 MR for that RT, while Aeroplan would charge 110,000 for the RT. ANA Mileage Club only allows members to use miles for immediate family members, so I decided to transfer 176k into my ANA account, and then link to my sister's ANA account, transfer 88k into it, and let her book the flight for my niece.
When I tried to make the transfer to my sister's ANA account, I got the following message: "This action will not be completed because of an attempt to sell or otherwise transfer Membership Reward points to someone else which is not permitted under the terms and conditions of the program."
Of course, I am not selling points, and I have never done so. After trying to resolve this with Amex, I was eventually told by a supervisor in the MR fraud department that ANA had labeled the transaction as suspected fraud, and I finally got a call from ANA which says that they only accept Amex MR transfers from the primary Amex cardholder into ANA accounts, so their system sees what I tried to do as fraud. Of course, this is outrageous. That is not at all what the Amex terms and conditions are, and of course, Amex should let its members know that, and they should not allow them to connect AUs to ANA accounts, etc.
So, OK, I thought, now I'll just transfer to Aeroplan and pay the extra 22k to get my niece's ticket, right? No. Now Amex won't let that transaction go through -- it gives me that same error message. And the people at the Amex fraud concern department can't fix it. I've literally spent hours on the phone with them today. The last guy had me delink and then relink my Aeroplan account, and then try the transfer, and that still didn't work.
I'm angry now.