Late last Friday, Brazilian travel platform 123milhas announced a temporary suspension of its “Promo” line — tickets and promotional packages with flexible dates — and canceled trips scheduled between September and December.
Customers with trips planned for this period will receive vouchers for the total amount paid, along with a monetary adjustment of 150 percent of the CDI (an average of interbank overnight deposit interest rates).
— 123milhas (@123milhas) August 19, 2023
Providing little detail, the company blamed the “persistence of adverse market circumstances beyond” its control. By Saturday, both the National Consumer Secretariat (Senacon), linked to the Justice Ministry, and Procon-SP, a state-level buyers rights body, confirmed that they would contact 123milhas to clarify the sudden suspension of packages and tickets.
On Sunday, Ibraci, an organization that defends consumer and investor rights, filed a public class action against 123milhas in a Rio de Janeiro business court. The entity asked for the judicial blocking of bank accounts of the company, its partners, and managing shareholders, freezing an amount sufficient to repay consumers.
The Brazilian Report asked 123milhas how many customers were affected by the temporary suspension and why the platform did not fully refund consumers. However, rather than respond to questions directly, the platform confirmed that Promo line sales “represent 7 percent of tickets purchased through the company in 2023.”
The company said refunds are being distributed across multiple vouchers — with separate vouchers to be issued for each leg of flight tickets, and separate hotel vouchers — adding further frustration to consumers, who cannot use the vouchers cumulatively.
By Monday morning, more than 1,500 complaints had been logged on Reclame Aqui, a platform that consolidates consumer complaints. These join the queue of more than 170,000 unresolved grievances against 123milhas on the platform.
While Brazil’s main airline loyalty programs prohibit the sale of air miles, there is no legislation in place to stop this practice, and sites vending third-party miles began to emerge at least ten years ago, exploiting this legal loophole.
Latam airlines will confiscate points immediately and may expel customers from the loyalty program Latam Pass if any incorrect use of miles is confirmed, such as granting access to third parties.
Similarly, Gol’s Smiles program and TudoAzul by Azul have limits on their terms of use. Most allow air miles to be transferred to family and friends, under certain conditions, on the understanding that benefits result from a loyalty relationship and cannot be sold.
The controversy surrounding 123milhas comes just months after another platform, Hurb, was compelled by Senacon to suspend sales of new promotional packages due to complaints that the platform had defaulted on payments to hotels and other accommodation providers.
Latam sued Hurb to collect a debt of BRL 10.8 million (USD 2.2 million) in May. It is not yet known whether 123milhas’s decision relates to difficulties paying service providers.
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