Pssst! Got some frequent flyer miles you barely use … or better yet, want? Or do you need a few miles to reach an award level? A new Web site aims to provide frequent flyers with the ability to barter their frequent flyer miles for products, services and other miles. You can also list items you’d like to exchange for an award ticket or specific number of miles. Immediately comparable to eBay or craigslist, milehighswap.com is for people who are using frequent flyer miles instead of cash to barter with. Signing up and posting an item to swap is free, but it will cost $0.99 to contact another user about a possible exchange or you can sign up for a subscription and contact as many users as you want for one monthly fee. If your transaction includes a transfer of miles, you or the person you are trading with are responsible for paying the transfer fees imposed by the airlines. You can also agree to split the fees. In general, it costs approximately $10 per 1,000 miles plus a $25-$30 service fee to transfer miles between accounts.
BUT, they aren’t the only garage sale on the block, sharing member-to-member trading with LoyaltyMatch.com, where members can buy or trade award merchandise with members of other loyalty programs. The difference is that Mile High Swap takes the idea one step further and allows members to exchange miles or points for anything someone else wants to “sell.”
You can search for thousands of items offered by loyalty programs across all sectors including airlines, hotels, car rentals, restaurants and retail merchants. When you see an item that you want, you can set a price or make an exchange offer. The price is the amount of money you will pay a seller to redeem their miles or points for that particular award. You can also choose to offer a trade.
For example, Air Canada’s Aeroplan offers an Apple iPod Shuffle for 15,000 Aeroplan miles. You can offer to buy or trade an item offered by one of your loyalty programs and would then see a list of members who have at least 15,000 Aeroplan miles in their account and could get an iPod for you. In order to make your trade request public and contact potential traders, you would then need to activate your 60-day listing for a $1.99 CDN fee.
But in the great lingo of the Internet, you might want to try testing these two out to get “in before the lock.” You see, loyalty program rules prohibit the buying, selling and bartering of miles and points. So far these same programs haven’t exercised their infamous legal might to prevent their merchandise awards from being freely exchanged, but given the trading of miles for merchandise … I’m not so sure that this doesn’t entail a little risk.
We certainly expect the surge in “award transfers” to get someone’s attention but until such time, hey, how many miles will you give me for a Garmin nuvi GPS unit that I got for Christmas (I prefer using the GPS on my iPhone)? OK, I’ll give you 15,000 United miles for a Krups toaster oven!!!
Mile High Swap
Loyalty Match
