This seems like a dangerous practice to me and one step closer to assesing a vlauation in someone's estate for estate tax purposes and then, of course, on to assesing income tax on the benefits altogether.

I thought the whole thing was that these miles were not property and were not transferrable as they were given "at the pleasure of the airline" (not anyone's direct quote, but it's too hokey to word it that way without some acknowledgement of its hokiness )