American Airlines Faces Lawsuit for Shutting Down Accounts
🔃 Update (Mar 05, 2025) – American Airlines has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. The airline says that “Plaintiffs committed fraud and abuse, which fully justified American terminating their membership in the AAdvantage program, per that program’s terms and principles of contract law.” It adds that “even under their version of events, it is clear that Plaintiffs are suing to restore frequent flyer miles that they obtained through gamesmanship—namely, promotional offers directed to other people.”
American claims that one of the plaintiffs hat has sued alongside the Nachisons, opened 20 American-branded credit cards within two and a half years. The motion says that Eric Link received 19 bonuses for which he was ineligible, totaling 1,095,000 improperly acquired miles.
The carrier’s motion to dismiss the claims brought by Derrick Gallagher, Abigail Gallagher, Eric Link, Miranda Link, Elliott Weiner, and Rachel Feit is also made on the basis that the court lacks personal jurisdiction over these plaintiffs’ claims against American.
➡️ Original article (Jan 29, 2024) – American Airlines was sued on Monday in a proposed class action claiming the airline shut down accounts for some customers who received multiple credit card bonuses. The lawsuit was filed by two customers who said the carrier stripped them of 1.1 million miles back in 2020. Many other accounts were shut down in late 2019.
Ari and Shanna Nachison said American wrongly accused them of fraud for opening multiple AAdvantage accounts, with cards issued under co-branding arrangements with Citibank and Barclays. They claim that while some card applications prevented multiple credit card bonuses within a 48-month period, theirs did not.
Ari Nachison said he lost 564,463 miles, while Shanna Nachison said she lost 550,664 miles.
They say that American Airlines had cited violations “related to the accrual of ineligible miles and benefits; through fraud, misrepresentation and/or abuse of the AAdvantage Program” in emails announcing the account closures.
The lawsuit filed in the San Jose, California federal court seeks damages for people whose AAdvantage accounts were terminated based on alleged fraud for obtaining signup bonuses from AAdvantage credit cards issued by Citi and Barclays.
The case is Nachison et al v American Airlines Inc, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 24-00530.
HT: Reuters
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