Hi all,

I searched on this and it seems like it's not a problem, but I wanted to be sure so I thought I'd ask outright:

If I wanted to redeem an e-Rewards reward (e.g. airline miles) for a friend or family member, I know that I need to change the name on the account. I know others have done this, hence this question goes to them:

How soon do you change the name back - immediately after redemption, or after some time? How long do airline mile rewards take to post? Have you had any issues where e-Rewards questioned why you changed the name on your account and back again?

Thanks for the advice!

I changed it back when I redeemed my next reward which was about 4 month's later.

This would be a violation of the rules of the program.

How do you come to this conclusion?

These are the applicable clauses from the Membership Agreement:As to Section 4b, I would not be transfering any of the e-Rewards currency (i.e. it is not moving to anyone else's account) nor would I be auctioning, trading, bartering or selling it. As to Section 7e, I again would not be selling, reselling, auctioning, trading, or bartering an award. The Member Agreement does not say anything about giving an award by gift with nothing in exchange; it disallows gifting of the e-Rewards currency itself (which I wouldn't be doing) and it disallows selling/trading of the currency or awards (which I also wouldn't be doing).

I'm not trying to pick a fight or anything, but how would you interpret gifting of an award to be a violation of the Agreement?

Just curious here.

I would not advise changing your frequent flyer account to your name and then change it back.

This issue is a gray area and easily result in your e-rewards account being nuked. Especially when I hear they have been cracking down and closing loopholes. On top of that, additional language been added to their new surveys warning of account termination if violating the T&C of the e-rewards agreement.

E-rewards checks your name and your destination account name and they do get suspicious if you have 2 airline miles transfers in 1 year. The airline mileage awards are 1x a year, no matter the amount.

It is certainly a gray area but is not explicitly barred by the T&Cs. IANAL but I would think they would have to explicitly close that loophole before being justified in nuking someone's account. Mileage running is also a gray area that exploits a loophole in the T&Cs of airline programs, but nobody's account gets nuked for doing that (except possibly for Delta).

Actually, IIRC the additional language does not refer to the T&Cs specifically but states that providing false information is grounds for termination. However, this is because providing false information is in effect fraudulently obtaining a reward (by filling out a survey for which you are not qualified). Despite the gray area, there is no overt fraud in gifting an (already earned!) reward to a friend or family member, as long as it is a true gift and not a sale/trade.

Sure, but I believe e-Rewards does not check the transaction history of the airline account, only of the e-Rewards account. Their system explicitly denies multiple transfers in a year anyway, and as evidenced by other threads here, changing the name on the e-Rewards account does not work to allow multiple redemptions - the system recognizes that the specific account (regardless of what name is on it) has redeemed in the past year and disallows multiple redemptions. While the e-Rewards account name and the airline account name must match (hence my original question of changing the name), I don't believe e-Rewards checks the transaction history of the destination airline account (the airline would need to provide access to that history and I don't believe that happens).

In any case, while I genuinely appreciate the concern, I am not trying to justify whether or not this is a good idea... I am sure there are risks involved although this is not explicitly prohibited by the T&Cs (although I agree it is a "gray area"). My question was whether other people who have done this have experienced problems and/or what their procedures were.

I would think that by changing the name of an account, you are effectively transferring the e-Rewards currency accrued in it to another person.