Death and Points. What happens to them???
 

I understand that upon your untimely death all your hotel points and FF miles disappear, unless you're married.

There must be a way around this...perhaps now that hotels and airlines accept online bookings your heirs can use up all the points before the point-grabbing hotels and airlines gobble them up with glee.

Any thoughts?

I know at least as of a few years ago, UA, for a then $75.00 fee, would allow you to transfer the relative's miles to your own account. On a similar note, I recall reading that AA will transfer the miles if the deceased person's will requests it. I may be wrong. Perhaps others can shed light on this further.

United still charges $75. US Airways had no charge. This was from one spouse (deceased) to another.

Can miles be willed to children. I wonder if Airlines will ever allow a beneficiary to be named?

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DtG

Frankly, I book all of my husbands award tickets and hotel stays now...unless he fell out the window of a Marriott or got electrocuted by the Delta x-ray machine, they wouldn't really have a clue that he was no longer...uh, capable of booking his own awards.

my stepfather died in 1996. My mom recieved his 150,000 AA miles just by asking. No fees.

Six months ago when a friend died, AA transferred his miles to his heir--took some calls and a copy of the death certficate and copy of the will.

[This message has been edited by TexasFlyer (edited 08-03-2001).]

I'm in the middle of helping my mother transfer my father's Delta SkyMiles account to hers. They require (1)a form supplied by them, (2)a copy of the death certificate, (3)a copy of the court order designating her as executrix of Dad's estate, and (4)an affidavit specifying what to do with the miles. (She could split the miles up between anybody she designated by showing Skymiles account number and number of miles to be designated for that account.

CO will transfer them for free. When my mother died, I simply, on my own accord, had my two bothers sign a notarized statement requesting the miles be transferred to my account. It was less than 25,000 miles. I sent this along with a death certificate and the miles were transferred promptly.

My father recently passed away from brain cancer. He was a companion pass holder on Southwest with my mom designated as the companion. The pass was valid for another 8 months and Southwest simply sent my mom four free roundtrip tickets.

That is why Southwest will continue to get my business!

Because of reading this thread, I just typed up a codicil to my will, distributing the miles, hotel points, etc.

Thanks for the heads-up.

Sylvia

Both my parents recently died and I have been dealing with this question in many programs. Here are my results:
1. AA - $50, copy of death cert., copy of will stating have the right to them.
2. MR for Amex said that could transfer to own account, but since had a card that was registered to same MR account have just transfered all out to other programs in my name.
3. Hotel (don't want to say which one here), got a great CR who just merged mine and my fathers.

Was told by all that it would be best if it was stated in the will that I specifically was to get the points from the accounts -- including the account name and number. I have done so for my daughter -- just having the numbers and accounts easily available is good to have -- I spent forever digging up the information for my parents!

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 http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif )

My wife and I have recently updated our estate planning and between us have a lot of miles/points. I did a fairly extensive review of this subject and found that all North American airlines & hotels have a proceedure for next of kin inhereting airline miles and hotel points. They differ somewhat in proceedure/documentation and some charge a fee.

With American Express Membership Rewards, the beneficiary at the time of death, must be an additional card holder on one of the deceased's cards or your out of luck.

On the assorted VISA/MC programs where the bank itself issues it's own points and then buys the card holder an airline ticket, you're out of luck unless the bank allows the beneficiary to assume the account (not likely).

With Brittish Airways & Hilton, they allow family/joint accounts which makes it a lot easier.

Something to watch out for is the now industry standard 3 year with no account activity airline miles expire policy. Many times a deceased person has not had much account activity for a long time prior to passing away and if you add to this probate time, many miles/points could be close to expiration when person(s) inheriting finally get around to these matters. The moral of this story is tell the person(s) who are inheriting about this detail of your will.

Sounds like a good subject for a film or novel - murder for the miles.