Changing flight booked by someone else, using points
 

Let's say I book a flight for my sister, using my own Rapid Rewards points. I send her the confirmation number and such. Some time later, she decides she wants to change her flight to a different one, that costs an additional 600 points. She logs in to her account, goes to Travel Tools->Change Itinerary, and enters the confirmation number and her name. What happens next? I honestly don't know, but I imagine it's one of these options:
A) She's told she can't modify this reservation, because it was booked with someone else's points.
B) She can modify the reservation, and it automatically takes the extra 600 points out of my account.
C) She can modify the reservation, but only after I somehow "approve" the extra points taken from my account.
D) She can modify the reservation, and it takes the extra 600 points from her own account
E) She can modify the reservation, but only by taking the new full amount out of her account, and the original points cost being refunded to my account.


Which of those is what actually happens if someone tries to do this? Is there an option F) I'm not thinking of?

I've done this a fair bit - using my wife's points to book a reservation for me (to then add my wife as my companion). At some point in the past when changing a flight (or refaring or, maybe, cancelling - I can't recall now) that I booked this way, I was unable to modify the reservation when logged-in as myself (and had to log-in as my wife); so, I would have thought that this would be the answer:

However, I just tried a dummy modification of a booking made for my travel using my wife's points (when logged-in as me) and it let me get all the way to the point to "Continue" (where "By clicking 'Continue', you agree to accept the fare rules and want to continue with this purchase") and seemed like it would take the additional points necessary (from my account! - because it let me get all the way to continue without enough points for the entire booking but with enough for the fare difference and when I tried for a more expensive booking (where I didn't have the marginal points fare difference in my account), it gave me an error asking if I wanted to buy points). But, I don't want to actually modify the booking; so, I'm not sure whether it would provide an error on the next screen.

My gut is that it is still (A), but, I couldn't confirm. I doubt it would now let one use only the marginal points from a different account because under my Point Activity Details, all refaring/changes/etc. to points bookings are processed as a full refund of the original booking and then a new redemption.

Also, note that if you include her RR # when you make the reservation, it will appear in her "My Travel" "Upcoming Trips" tab when she logs in (this link may work for her too if you forget).

although she can see the travel in her account, she can checkin/cancel but not modify.

Hitting modify gets to a certain point then it will ask the rapid reward points-earner to log in. Calling the reservation 800# results in the rep insisting to speak to and verify security information from the reward earner.

Making a chance in the airport is also denied unless the reward earner is present. Once they allowed this because I had my wife's rapid reward card which they swiped. The other time the reward earner wasn't present and in order to get my flight changed I had to cancel the current reservation and re-book using my own points.

Confirming what expert7700 posted after I loaded this thread...

Kinda-sorta A from your list:
In the quoted example the flight was being refared down, so approval of the points owner should not have been necessary.

So what happens next is that you have to start all over after logging in to the account of the points owner (so you better have the PNR handy). IIRC, it was clearly stated in the initial RR 2.0 documents that changes to points bookings could only be made by the owner of the points.

Thanks for all the replies everyone. Glad to know, at least, that my sister wouldn't be able to accidentally charge me more points after getting her a gift of a flight home... :-)