First of all, let me make the assumption that these are miles in an airline's frequent flier program, which have already posted into her airline account, right?

On the other hand, if these are miles in the credit card issuer's own program, I don't think she should count on getting any free tickets from them after filing

If these are airline miles that have already posted, she shouldn't have anything to worry about. FF miles are non-transferrable, so there is nothing for her to lose. She should disclose them to her attorney before filing the petititon, but I don't think there is any need to list them on the petition.

She should definitely *not* cash in any awards without talking to her attorney first. First of all, depending on the circumstances, it smacks a little bit of a fraudulent transfer, which could make her life very complicated. Also, even though the miles are not considered property, and IMHO would not need to be listed on the petition, an unused airline ticket or award in her possession would probably have to be listed, and could possibly be seized by the creditors.

As long as she is upfront about it and doesn't try to hide anything, she should still be in possession of her miles after bankruptcy.


[Let me add a couple of points after re-reading the original post, which says that she had earned these miles with this credit card in the last twelve months. If a large number of miles had been posted (meaning she'd made a lot of charges, really), in the past few months, I could conceivably see the creditor making an allegation that she made these charges in anticipation of bankruptcy, which is a bad thing!

Also (and this is off topic, I guess), but now that she is thinking about bankruptcy and talking about bankruptcy, she needs to stop using the credit cards, period! If she makes charges after talking about filing, this could cause her big problems!


[This message has been edited by clemlaw (edited 09-10-2001).]