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"Divorce Court" TV judge Lynn Toler awarded 257,041 miles to a husband who successfully claimed he had spent his own miles on the couple's travel and should be reimbursed.

She complained that they had traveled the world, but he would always walk ahead of her at tourist destinations.

The judge pooled her 650,808 miles with his 136,736 miles and split the total even-steven.

At the end of the show, the couple had apparently reconciled, were kissing, and were planning their next trip.

bob12403

Even-steven?
Her 650,808+his 136,736=787,544
787,544 divided by 2=393,772, not 257,041.

Icypackattack

lol
well it was close to even-steven lol

yad

257,041+136,736=393,777. Close, anyway.

strand1one

He was not awarded his own miles, he kept those. He was awarded the total amount of miles divided by two minus his current miles. Small discrepency.

ArizonaGuy

And what airline is going to permit this "free" transfer? Obviously depends on the airline's T&C's but most clearly outline who owns the miles (the airline, usually) and what happens in legal disputes.

lkar

In real non-tv divorce court, I think the most common result is not really to split all the assets like this. I think what would happen here is the wife would keep all of her miles, but the 257k miles would be given a value (agreed upon by the parties or decided by the judge if they can't agree) and assigned to his part of the ledger. And then there would just be a reconciliation at the end with all similar assets. Whoever came out ahead would likely transfer cash, or, more commonly, retirement assets. That's usually the place where large sums can be moved around and legally transferred to reconcile assets that the parties can't actually split feasibly (like real property or miles, etc.). But it's just a big accounting.

For the tv things, they agree beforehand to take a pot of money from the show, which is then apportioned between them depending on who "won" or "lost." So I would guess everyone just keeps their miles, but off screen the judge or maybe even the producer just gives the lion's share of the prize money to the winner on screen based on how much he or she won.

But besides that, I thought (not sure why I think this) that airlines do in fact honor orders dividing up frequent flier miles in divorces, at least in community property states.

Schutzee

When I got divorced, Hilton de-mutualized our account and started a new account for my ex. They moved 150,000 HHonors points to it with no charge. All I had to do was fax a copy of the divorce agreement splitting the points. Miles and points was on my ex's radar as I had just done the Latin Pass million mile run.

otptravels

Thanks for the info. Ever since I saw that opening scene in "Wedding Crashers", I wondered how they could just split up miles in a divorce like that when airlines make it so difficult and expensive to split up miles. Not that it's something I'm planning for, but good info nonetheless.

GUWonder

How long until someone on FT suggests getting divorced as a means to combine points from separate accounts and reach a redemption target?

delayedinLGA

Erm, I think you just did:-)

BlueGirlGoes

Very clever, perhaps a faux divorce decree..... <kidding>

I used a lot of my miles for vacations with my ex, never considered going back to calculate as an asset.

iamthehpt

Many airlines will also split the account in response to a court order of divorce.

ldpeters

If you do some legal research into the notion of miles as property, you'll find that 95% of what comes up are divorce (and probate) proceedings.

jessej

something else to add to my prenup agreement