Originally Posted by
mritty
Let's say I book a flight for my sister, using my own Rapid Rewards points. I send her the confirmation number and such. Some time later, she decides she wants to change her flight to a different one, that costs an additional 600 points. She logs in to her account, goes to Travel Tools->Change Itinerary, and enters the confirmation number and her name. What happens next?
I've done this a fair bit - using my wife's points to book a reservation for me (to then add my wife as my companion). At some point in the past when changing a flight (or refaring or, maybe, cancelling - I can't recall now) that I booked this way, I was unable to modify the reservation when logged-in as myself (and had to log-in as my wife); so, I would have thought that this would be the answer:
Originally Posted by
mritty
A) She's told she can't modify this reservation, because it was booked with someone else's points.
However, I just tried a dummy modification of a booking made for my travel using my wife's points (when logged-in as me) and it let me get all the way to the point to "Continue" (where "By clicking 'Continue', you agree to accept the fare rules and want to continue with this purchase") and seemed like it would take the additional points necessary (from my account! - because it let me get all the way to continue without enough points for the entire booking but with enough for the fare difference and when I tried for a more expensive booking (where I didn't have the marginal points fare difference in my account), it gave me an error asking if I wanted to buy points). But, I don't want to actually modify the booking; so, I'm not sure whether it would provide an error on the next screen.
My gut is that it is still (A), but, I couldn't confirm. I doubt it would now let one use only the marginal points from a different account because under my Point Activity Details, all refaring/changes/etc. to points bookings are processed as a full refund of the original booking and then a new redemption.
Also, note that if you include her RR # when you make the reservation, it will appear in her "My Travel" "Upcoming Trips" tab when she logs in (
this link may work for her too if you forget).