Some time ago, American Airlines (AA) reviewed and shut down a large number of accounts associated with Churn Citi AA credit cards. See here for reference (by the time I finished writing that brief update, AA had shut me down too, even though I had never used any miles). Pretty brutal.
More recently, starting around December 2019, quite a few DPs have shown that British Airways (BA) has begun reviewing accounts, and has already shut down a fair number of them. Miles in closed accounts are confiscated.
At the moment, BA accounts being reviewed (or shut down) mainly seem to share the following characteristics:
- A rapid increase in account mileage balance over a short period of time (recent heavy spend on the BA co-branded card, point transfers, etc.)
- Recently redeeming miles for tickets for people other than the account holder, especially issuing tickets for multiple people
- You can appeal, but reviewed accounts need to provide relevant information about the passengers; otherwise the account will ultimately be closed
Our records indicate that tickets in the names of various third parties have been redeemed from your Executive Club account between xx/xx/xxxx and xx/xx/xxxx.This pattern of activity is high when compared to the average redemption rates on Executive Club membership accounts.
In order to bring the review of your account to a swift conclusion, we would be grateful if you would provide confirmation that redemption bookings made on your account have been made in accordance with the Executive Club Terms and Conditions.
If you were only redeeming tickets for family or friends, and not doing it frequently, then providing the relevant documentation should make it fairly easy to get your account restored. If you have been frequently issuing tickets for other people, then it is basically GG.
If you need to book tickets for others in the near future, I would recommend avoiding BA mileage redemptions for now.