Why no miles or TP's on a flight you miss?!

I've been meaning to ask this for awhile: can someone explain why you don't get airmiles or TPs on a paid-for flight that you can't make?

We've all had flights, or return legs that for one reason or another you don't take, or simply missed, but why don't you get the miles for the seat you paid for?! Surely your bum on the seat is irrelevant as to whether you should earn the miles for the seat you paid for, but... obviously that is not so! Why?

Because thats the rules! :P

They're rewards for flying, if you don'y fly, then no reward. It's kind of fair.

It wouldn't help them with load predictions either, if you had people buying cheap tickets for the points and not actually taking the flight, thereby potentially hurting revenue.

[mitchja]

It's you as the passenger earning the miles and status, not the airline fare so if you don't fly or board the flight for what ever reason, you don't earn the miles/status.

Plus, a one way fare is often considerably more than a return, so I’d imagine they don’t want to reward the folk who drop a leg.

The natural follow up question to this would be “why do they charge so much for a one way fare?” to which I have no clue.

Because you are paying for a flight and the miles and tier points are a bonus adjunct to the flight.

Allowing people to earn when they haven't flown is just a short step to just selling status. How much for Gold would people be willing to pay?

Selling status doesn't generate loyalty and ongoing spend which is the basis of frequent flyer programmes - to lock people into spending money with them because you want to chase status because of the benefits it gives you.


As to the price of one way flights that's also a 'because they can' and a relic of the old days and the Saturday night rule. Though there are ways around this.

If you miss a flight you can often pay a fee and use the unused ticket at a later date - in which case you would be earning twice.