Free Airline Tickets: Scams, Rackets and Rip-offs

May 24, 2013— -- Every industry falls victim to scams, rackets and rip-offs. Or plain old pipe dreams. Which reminds me of Powerball, which, isn't a rip-off since someone eventually comes up with the winning numbers but it probably won't be you or me (odds of winning: 1 in 175,223,510). You have a better chance at becoming the next American Idol (1 in 103,000) or succumbing to an attack of bees (1 in 71,107).

Yet perfectly sane people think they're going to win the millions. Maybe that's why some believe those airline ticket giveaways are legit, too.

Repeat after me: If you get an air travel offer that sounds too good to be true, well - duh. Let's burst some bubbles about phony freebies, plus legitimate giveaways that upon closer inspection aren't quite as 'free' as you may think.

For more travel news and insights view Rick's blog at farecompare.com

Some folks in the Dallas area (and possibly elsewhere) have found postcards in their mailbox for a so-called promotion for Delta; the cards said they'd been selected to receive "2 round-trip airfares to anywhere in the contiguous United States, good for the next 12 months!" Notice that while "free" is implied the word does not appear anywhere on the postcard. That's because it's not really free.

According to one of my friends in the media, postcard recipients were required to sit through a 90-minute presentation for a travel club that cost thousands to join, and then pony up about $200 in taxes for the "free" tickets. In case you're wondering, taxes on average non-stop domestic tickets run about $23 round-trip or about $43 for a connecting flight, so I don't know where the $100-per-ticket figure comes from.

Sounds like good old-fashioned sucker-bait to me: probably not felonious but not very fair, either. A Delta spokesman told me a couple of things you should know: 1.) Delta is not the source of any such offers, and depending on the communication you receive, 2.) Delta strongly suggests you change your SkyMiles account password. Good advice no matter what your airline.

I might add there are perfectly legitimate ways tickets and miles are used to sweeten purchases, but if a purchase is solely about promises of future travel and/or discounts and comes with a four figure price tag, I suggest you stay away.

Back to "free" tickets: The airlines aren't exactly pillars of transparency when it comes to reward tickets. No, they don't engage in nefarious schemes to rip you off, but such tickets aren't quite free. Reward redemption fees and/or taxes and other charges can really add up, but yes it can still be quite a deal and certainly better than nothing but you should know what you'll be paying to avoid unpleasant surprises. To their credit, the airlines do reveal all this information in their densely-worded explanations of airline miles program rules, which are easy to interpret. Easy as Pi, that is.