IMH

Other options to consider here are the BA "Household Account" and the bmi "Family Account".

meFIRST

I can report that trAAsh (aka American Airlines) requires you to use the same credit card as it the account holder, for award tickets.

For exmaple (hypothetical)
Mr. Fabulous Flagship is a 3 MM who, is a selfish SOB - hoarded over 3,000,000 miles. He flew a lot. And foolishly, Fabulous hardly ever redeemed miles when he was a alive. Fabulous is now dead. He can't take his miles or status to the next world. We hope there is a Priority AAccess lane for him 6 feet under.

John Highstyle (related) now has control of Fabulous's AAdvantage account. John Highstyle calls AAdvantage and books a ticket on CX F, by calling AAdvantage (and pretexting to be Mr. Fabulous Flagship) Or John Highstyle logs into Mr. Fabulous Flagship's account - and books travel, using miles, in F of couse.

Mr Fabulous Flagship's credit card has to pay for the taxes on the ticket, as well as any associated luxury tax.

There is no way around this. Calling an agent will not help.

I realized this in my attempt to clean out my AAdvantage account and close it, by giving away tickets to friends. I was quite annoyed that I had to pay for the taxes -out of my credit card. Called an agent - no dice, it's the way AAdvantage works.

Assuming Fabulous Flagship's credit cards are closed upon his/her death, there is no way to redeem the miles. It's forever GONE.


Lesson for AA people - Keep the dead person's credit card alive for this purpose (if you need to)

GUWonder

There are ways around that without using a charge card in the name of the deceased. There are ways for AA to accept payment for award ticket taxes/fees by means other than use of a charge card in the name of the deceased.

Also, it makes no sense to use the named person's charge card without their authorization -- and authorization cannot be granted after death.

Keyser

a close friend of mine passed away early last year....he had well over 2 million hilton honors points in his account....

since we used to travel together for work all the time, my secretary had both our account details & passwords....

i gave the account details to his wife after his death....she recently started using some of those points & has not had a problem....she just books the room online & adds her name to the reservation....

friedice

How about adding an authorized user to your own CC account with the deceased's name?

juggler451

I was able to transfer my grandfather's continental miles into my account by sending a copy of the death certificate and a notarized statement saying if anyone disputed my claim to the miles i'd reimburse continental for expenses (cheaper to get this statement notarized than have lawyer write a letter).

cmjaffe

know for a fact that AA Miles can be transfered w/copy of death certificate w/o fee (did it 2 years ago for DM) and this is a nice way of pushing up lifetime miles. Been pumping up aunt's AA accounts by churning Citi cards for a bit with hopes of eventually passing on the miles (aunt's 96 right now, not pushing her in grave) to push lifetime amounts to get higher status for either myself or DH.

Spent_All_My_Miles

This is an important point. Other airlines have this, and others still have a variant on this. I recently booked an award ticket on DL for a relative, using his miles but my credit card since I didn't have his. Before he travels, I will need to go to a DL ticket counter, show the credit card I used and a copy of the PNR. They will then annotate the PNR, indicating that it is OK for him to travel. They may only do this for certain destinations (this award ticket is to a "high fraud country"); if the PNR is't annotated, DL says he wouldn't be allowed to check in.

Also, if you are trying to use person A's miles for person B to travel, you may not be able to do this for same-day travel, for fraud reasons. Person A could make such a booking in person at an airport, but that obviously won't help in this situation.

Fully agree that you should have the credit card details of the person in question, and also the rules about whether you have to jump through hoops like this.