Airline Miles

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Fat-Tailed Contagion
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Airline Miles

Post by Fat-Tailed Contagion »

My Aunt has a bunch of Airline Miles from various airlines she wants help sorting out.

United
Alaska
American
Delta
Virgin

Her husband passed away a couple of years ago and had Miles with these airlines as well. - Can these be rolled into her account? How?

She wants to use them now for domestic and international trips in the next year.

What is the best way to sort out the details of these programs? Call them? Online?

Thanks for any pointers.
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02nz
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Re: Airline Miles

Post by 02nz »

Airline policies on deceased members differ. You'll need to research each one.

In some cases, the program rules state miles are forfeited upon death. [Comment suggesting fraudulent activity removed by moderator oldcomputerguy]

BTW Virgin America (if that's what you meant - distinct from Virgin Australia and Virgin Atlantic) was merged into Alaska, so the frequent flier miles should also have merged. Usually this is automatic, but not always.
Goldwater85
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Re: Airline Miles

Post by Goldwater85 »

I’d suggest searching a forum like flyertalk or a blog like onemileatatime or thepointsguy or viewfromthewing as a starting point. There are people who spend enormous amounts of time thinking about and discussing airline mileage programs. Almost as much time as people spend arguing about the value premium or the utility of international stocks here.
Bobby206
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Re: Airline Miles

Post by Bobby206 »

Generally they have official policies against transferring between members but in my experience most will do between spouses. Check each airline website and probably send in a letter with copy of death cert, husband's frequent flyer #, and wife's frequent flyer #. Shouldn't be that hard. You also might check number of miles x value per mile from google to determine if it's worth the hassle. For example, if just 10k-20k miles may or may not be worth the hassle. Good luck.
rich126
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Re: Airline Miles

Post by rich126 »

Miles usually expire if an account has no activity. Due to covid most have postponed expiration policies but if the relative passed away a few years ago it is possible that those miles may be gone.

Most major US airlines fo not allow pooling of miles. Some like British air do.


https://thepointsguy.com/guide/airlines ... y-pooling/

https://onemileatatime.com/airline-miles-death/
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spectec
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Re: Airline Miles

Post by spectec »

I transferred airline miles to a non-profit organization about 3 years ago. I think AA charged me $50 to transfer 20K miles, but not sure of the details now. I also don't think it was limited to charitable purposes - could have been a transfer to anyone. Airlines that do offer the ability to transfer miles usually have annual caps on the number you can transfer in a year.
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LadyGeek
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Re: Airline Miles

Post by LadyGeek »

Discussions of dishonest behavior or bypassing the law is totally unacceptable.

I removed a post suggesting the Aunt continue using the late husband's accounts.
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bob60014
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Re: Airline Miles

Post by bob60014 »

Here is a the link from THE POINTS GUY regarding death of mileage members, which may be helpful.

https://thepointsguy.com/guide/points-a ... r-you-die/
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