Are flyers miles permissible? A registration fee has to be paid.

Answer

'Flyer Miles' are supposed to be 'gifts'. The registration fee is in fact in lieu of the miles. If it was a pure gift, it would not have carried a fee regardless of what designation is given to the fee.

This deal is therefore Hibah bil I'waz which is in the category of a sale (Bay'). The validity of a sale demands that both commodities be known. But in the case of flyer miles, the amount of miles is not known (Majhool) when the fee is paid. Regardless of what the payment made is used for, the fact remains that the one who will be receiving unknown gifts in the future is required to make a payment. Thus there is the element of Qimaar.

If Zaid gives Bakr a bag of rice as a gift, but requests R10 which he (Zaid) wants to pay to a worker who had carried the rice to his (Zaid's) house, then this will be Hibah bil I'waz, whose ahkaam will become applicable. Zaid cannot later make Rujoo' of the gifted item on the basis of the argument that the R10 was not for him, but was merely to pay his worker (it was like the registration fee), hence according to Zaid it is not Hibah bil I'waz. However, Zaid's argument is invalid since according to the Shariah, it is Hibah bil I'waz which precludes Rujoo'.

Furthermore, in this transaction there is no tangible commodity (maal). The registration fee is a payment in advance for unknown services to be rendered in the future. The flyer miles transaction is not permissible if a fee has to be paid, irrespective of the purpose for which the free is paid.