Mileage and..death !
 

I am a relatively healthy frequentflyer,39 ,luckily flying in biz most long haul,
about 300 000 miles a year,occasinaly using miles to upgrade to F
this gives me a bank of close to 4 million miles in various accounts.
2 kids ,too young still to fly long haul (I am in south of france and just spent 60 000 K to bring all the family to Nice from Brussels)
Now wat happen if I die?
I have left a note to my brother with all passwords of my FF base.
no airline will figure out my family will be flying on a dead body account...untill I loose top tier,downgrade one floor by one floor from top to none,so about 6 years of life max after death...
I thought about putting some energy to create a nonprofit company that would lobby so that you can donate your miles when you pass away to charity accounts (helping for ex medecins sans frontieres to fly)
but would like to have your thoughts about this...
what strategy have you in place?
do you know what airlines do when you die? I think most terminate your account...Isn't it time to stand up on the issue?
I am eager to hear your comments on this posting..
wishing you a happy 08 -full of life and safe flights...:D

If you haven't already, you may want to read the suggestions in http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=693913

I assisted a friend whose husband passed away a couple of years ago. A letter to the airline or hotel, along with a copy of the death certificate, led to virtually every entity moving the miles into the widow's account. Password was not necessary. Account number was helpful, but not crucial.

the last time we modified our wills, we included language stating that the air,hotel,etc balances were part of the estate....

To be honest, a mileage will never crossed my mind nor have I made any considerations about it until I ran across this thread. :D

My kids always have a very good excuse why they don't want to talk about our wishes after our deaths so we compromised and I told them where the stuff they will need is kept. You know, brokerage accounts, stocks, deeds, titles, bank accounts, and frequent fly and stay information.

On my "Someday" list is parcelling out the jewelry and "stuff" and adding a paragraph to our wills about our miles and points.

Then our plan is to go out and spend all of the money and burn all of the miles and points. :D

Put a bumpersticker on the back of the airliner, "I'm spending my kids inheritance".

:D

The question as to whether, or not, miles or points can go into estate vary with each airline and chain.

For example, Hilton Hhonors points are not transferable upon death.

So, the suggestion to leave the acct numbers and pins is very important.

You can check ahead as to which of your accounts are transferable, then let someone have the important info.