It has been suggested that, if one is dealing with an airline whose policy for this is felt to be unfairly harsh, a survivor can obtain login information for the account and impersonate the account holder to get awards. Obviously, the practicality of doing this varies from situation to situation. It is also against the terms and conditions of every program and probably illegal in some jurisdictions, but unless one is using several million miles to fly a large family around the world in F, the chances of detection are small. (The most common way airlines detect fraudulent mileage use, by asking the traveler personal questions about the account holder that a random miles buyer couldn't answer, won't catch this because the traveler will know the answers.) I do not recommend or endorse this strategy, but it may be worth considering in some situations.