Forfeiture of Qantas Points on Members Death

[turtlemichael]

The use of the expression: "it's a crime" worries me. A crime is as defined by the various state and federal laws. Because Qantas says you can't do it does not make it fraud if you do. Whether it is or isn't fraud will depend on the legal definition and whether your actions come within it.

 

[Cocitus23]

It states



The only way that the transfer can be performed after death is by claiming to be the member and making the transfer

Dave

I don't know that this statement is necessarily true, Dave. I choose to give my wife my PIN and to allow her to operate my account. She never makes any claim to be me. For sure, she is acting as my agent, but that is fine by me.

 

[Dave Noble]

The use of the expression: "it's a crime" worries me. A crime is as defined by the various state and federal laws. Because Qantas says you can't do it does not make it fraud if you do. Whether it is or isn't fraud will depend on the legal definition and whether your actions come within it.

I would have thought that obtaining goods or services by deception is covered in state or federal laws

The deception being to pose as the member to make the booking

Dave

 

[tuapekastar]

It states

Whether notified or not, points earned before death ( not notification of ) are cancelled

The only way that the transfer can be performed after death is by claiming to be the member and making the transfer

Dave

And what of those points earned after death? (Lazarus may have benefited here)! Aside from some CC/partner earn coming in, there are not likely to be any points earned between death and notification of same.

And as stated by a previous poster, making a transfer does not necessarily equate to claiming to be the member.

 

[tuapekastar]

Tuapekastar, of you Shakespeare would proclaim "A Daniel come to judgement! Yea, a Daniel". IMHO, yours are the wisest words spoken in this thread, and you have been very observant in noticing the words in Clause 8.3 about the account being closed upon notification of the death.

I'm not sure who Daniel is this case - I'll have to look it up oops, but I'm sure Shakespeare could talk his way past the BA lounge dragons any day!

8.3 is certainly worded in a somewhat loose fashion.

 

[medhead]

It states

8.3 Membership will terminate automatically on the death of a Member. Points earned but not yet redeemed or transferred prior to the death of the Member will be cancelled

Whether notified or not, points earned before death ( not notification of ) are cancelled

And the point is that condition as worded is impractical and can't actually happen. No matter what other skills qantas has they are not omnipotent. Death does not work for Qantas. They can not know that an individual has died and therefore the cancellation has no effect until they do know. This is acknowledged in the T&C that refers to notification.

The only way that the transfer can be performed after death is by claiming to be the member and making the transfer

Actually, there are many ways that people are legally empowered to act of behalf of others. There is no need to claim to be someone who is dead at all.

Whether you might get away with it is irrelevent

Dave

The fact that you can get away with it is entirely the point. Qantas do in fact let people get away with it. (but, sure, they will cancel given the chance) There are many good reasons why they don't enforce this rule as others have mentioned, the PR aspects. But another reason must relate to protections related to deceased estates and the whole legal aspects of wills etc. I believe that any case that did end up in court would argee that points have value and it would be a fairly easy arguement to put that the points do have an intrinsic value, despite the T&C. The next step is that people have a right to protect and deal in their valuable under common law and that they ahve the right to direct how their valuables are dealt with when they die. I am sure that Qantas don't want case law that says their T&C can't negate basic legal rights.

I would have thought that obtaining goods or services by deception is covered in state or federal laws

The deception being to pose as the member to make the booking

The executor of a will is not posing as the member. Someone with power of attoney is not posing as the member. There is no issue of deception at all. And most likely these people are carrying out the express wishes legally on behalf of the member.

 

[Dave Noble]

The executor of a will is not posing as the member. Someone with power of attoney is not posing as the member. There is no issue of deception at all. And most likely these people are carrying out the express wishes legally on behalf of the member.

The executor has to act as executor; he is not the member and if he contacts QF to inform them that he is the executor, they will properly close the account

Dave

 

[Chimpy]

The deception being to pose as the member to make the booking

Dave

I used to make bookings for my mother when she was alive as she could not
use a computer, would you class this as deception as well Dave?

 

[drron]

I would have thought that obtaining goods or services by deception is covered in state or federal laws

The deception being to pose as the member to make the booking

Dave

I have always made bookings from mrsdrron's account when getting award using her FF points.This has been with both AA and QFF.In fact just yesterday I rang QFF in regard to missing points in her account.The agent had no problem dealing with me.
Am i guilty of fraud.
As to the "well they are the T&C's like it or lump it" surely a member of such a loyalty scheme has a right to ask for a change in the T&Cs-I have done this with diners and Citibank why not QFF?

 

[NM]

Am i guilty of fraud.

Only if you were pretending to be Mrs drron. If you made it clear who you were and they were happy to deal with you then certainly no fraud. But if I called Qantas and pretended to be drron, then I would be committing fraud.

As to the "well they are the T&C's like it or lump it" surely a member of such a loyalty scheme has a right to ask for a change in the T&Cs-I have done this with diners and Citibank why not QFF?

You can ask for anything. You can even ask Qantas to give you your own personal A380 as a private jet. But I think it would naive to do so with any realistic level of expectation that they would comply with your request.

While Qantas may sometimes turn a blind eye to the practice of redeeming benefits from a deceased member's account prior to notification of the member's death, I expect they would be very reluctant to make any official determination for an individual membership that could be identified as a precedent against the published terms and conditions.

 

[cove]

I think DRRON and MRSDRRON are quite representative of functioning families chasing up points missing and doing redemptions from several accounts as needed for the family.

One of the nicest parts of points redemptions is how easy the phone call is handled by QF when it comes to changing dates of travel part of which still cannot be done on the internet.
Tubing a chunk of points thru a family death currently is optional despite the 999 rules that apply because QF would know what is happening and only apply those rules when told of the death.This is what triggers forfeiture as they then have to uphold the rules.

 

[Natt]

Is it possible that Qantas is more than happy not to resolve this matter?

After all if its held up legally that the points do have value and should be transferred then they would have to fork over a lot of points.

As it is most of the points accrued (technically all) are "lost"

Just because one party says you must comply with a term or condition it does not mean that you will have to after a legal test

lets take a simple and common example - you go to a shop and buy something - the sign displayed says "no exchange or refunds". Does that negate your right to return faulty or misrepresented goods - absolutely not

 

[medhead]

The executor has to act as executor; he is not the member and if he contacts QF to inform them that he is the executor, they will properly close the account

Dave

Yes, the executor has to act as executor on behalf on the deceased person to put their wishes into effect. Therefore if an executor access the on line account of the member he would not be posing as the members. Similiar for someone holding a power of attoney while the person was alive.

Here is an example: Say my dad said to me, on the night he died, that he wanted me to book mum a flight using his points, being as the cancer got him so bad he couldn't do it himself. It is late, I go to bed, planning to book the flight the next day. I have all the legal papers to act on his behalf while alive. He dies that night, I'm an executor, (joint). I book the requested flight 2 days later. Am I committing fraud or have I just exercised my dad's right to use his points, as I should have done when he requested me to do so.

BTW IME Qantas do not cancel the account when contacted by the executor. They explain the situation with cancelling the points and closing the account and then request that notification is submitted. They then close the account once they get the notification.

 

[drron]

You can ask for anything. You can even ask Qantas to give you your own personal A380 as a private jet. But I think it would naive to do so with any realistic level of expectation that they would comply with your request.

While Qantas may sometimes turn a blind eye to the practice of redeeming benefits from a deceased member's account prior to notification of the member's death, I expect they would be very reluctant to make any official determination for an individual membership that could be identified as a precedent against the published terms and conditions.

I think you misunderstood me-I was not saying I would ask for something related to my membership in isolation but for a change in the T&Cs.Sure they probably wont respond on this but if enough people were asking the same thing then they should at least consider it.Except if we all asked for A380s to be given out on reaching say 21000 SCs.

 

[NM]

I think you misunderstood me-I was not saying I would ask for something related to my membership in isolation but for a change in the T&Cs.Sure they probably wont respond on this but if enough people were asking the same thing then they should at least consider it.Except if we all asked for A380s to be given out on reaching say 21000 SCs.

No, I didn't misunderstand. You can ask for what you have suggested. But I am sure you understand that asking and receiving are not necessarily sequential activities.

If its something you believe should be altered, then you have a few options available, including (and I expect not limited to):

• requesting a variation to the Terms and Conditions for your membership
• requesting they consider altering the Terms and Conditions for all members
• test the legality of the Terms and Conditions in court
• commence a media campaign to try to pressure them to alter the Terms and Conditions
• start a partition and submit it to Qantas with a request to consider revising the Terms and Conditions
• start a poll on a travel-related web site to see what others things and start a healthy discussion

I am not suggesting that I like the status quo. But I do acknowledge that I agreed to the terms and conditions when I joined and accept that they apply to my membership. What someone does with any remaining points in my FF or other membership accounts after my lifetime status expires is not going to be any of my business at that time .

 

[Moody]

It has been a long long time since I thoroughly read through all the Terms and Conditions associated with a financial or non-financial transaction.

Why would that be?

Because it matters not a jot that the company says "Here are our rules", because if they don't comply with the law then they are worthless.

So Qantas tells us over and over again that points are oh so valuable and you should pay for the privilige of earning them because the rewards are soooo good and then, and then, they want to limit your ability to get any value from them in any way they can.

They used to severely limit award availability so that points were used on less popular routes or not at all, but then they were taken to task by the ACCC and exposed by fairer schemes like Velocity and so had to start offering "Any Seat" rewards (though at hugely inflated cost so that the value of the points was diminished).

Their second biggest play is to simply cancel accounts of deceased members in the hope that the family is too upset to see that they have been robbed of the points. But as they know they are on shaky ground they let the more resourceful families use these points, because it has been pointed out that if they were taken to court over the issue and lost then there would be hell to pay. Hell being defined as the return of billions of points to deceased estates.

So Qantas and their apologists would like you to think that they can arbitrarily wipe your points, but whether you play that game is voluntary. Obvious Qantas hasn't read my T&C's - particularly the "Sorry - I don't choose to be screwed" clause in section 8.3z.

 

[JohnK]

I have always made bookings from mrsdrron's account when getting award using her FF points.This has been with both AA and QFF.In fact just yesterday I rang QFF in regard to missing points in her account.The agent had no problem dealing with me.
Am i guilty of fraud.

And this is a classic case in point. Is there specific mention in the terms and conditions that the actual member has to be one managing the account or making the award redemptions? Even if there was it would not legally enforceable for a number of reasons like the above case, elderly people not being able to use computers, blind people etc. How can you deny someone the use of QFF points because they do not know how use a computer?

And the point is that condition as worded is impractical and can't actually happen. No matter what other skills qantas has they are not omnipotent. Death does not work for Qantas. They can not know that an individual has died and therefore the cancellation has no effect until they do know. This is acknowledged in the T&C that refers to notification.

Is there any legal obligation to inform Qantas of the death of a family member? Why even inform Qantas of the death of a family member? Use the QFF points as quickly as possible and then let the account expire with inactivity 3 years later. If Qantas really cares about cancelling QFF accounts upon death then they should do their own investigative work like trawling through death notices instead of relying on family to tell them.

I for one would not have a guilty conscience and if Qantas finds out let them try and get the QFF points back, which by the way have no value, through the legal system.

As to the "well they are the T&C's like it or lump it" surely a member of such a loyalty scheme has a right to ask for a change in the T&Cs-I have done this with diners and Citibank why not QFF?

Everyone has a right to challenge the terms and conditions. It is quite OK to accept the terms and conditions as written and perfectly acceptable to write in asking for a change to the terms and conditions at any point in time.

 

[medhead]

I for one would not have a guilty conscience and if Qantas finds out let them try and get the QFF points back, which by the way have no value, through the legal system.

Maybe, I don't really know. But I suspect that a good arguement could be put that they do have an intrinsic value. They can be used to obtain something that has a value, that implies they themselves might have some assignable value.

However, these are just general comments (meaning I could very well be total wrong but I stand by my comments) Also I am vague aware in the back of my memory that there might already be some case law on this value thing, related to ATO matters.

On your point about informing qantas - yes exactly. (besides I can't disclose that information for privacy reasons)

 

[JohnK]

Maybe, I don't really know. But I suspect that a good arguement could be put that they do have an intrinsic value. They can be used to obtain something that has a value, that implies they themselves might have some assignable value.

As far as Qantas is concerned QFF points do not have a value and have never had a value. So how can Qantas change their stance on value of QFF points if they take someone to court? Sorry but Qantas can't have it both ways....

 

[munitalP]

I like the thread...

Yes, im my opinion points have a $ value. In my case, the $ value is high because I spend on average 300K+ points a year on Y to J upgrades. The calculation for say a MEL/LAX cheapy vs a J then using the points to upgrade makes the value very high vs using them for purchasing that flight outright on points.

Another thing I have noticed is that some posts read just like the others (regardless of the thread) - always the same negative theme...

Mr!

:-|