Southwest Airlines denies transferring rapid reward miles to a beneficiary after death

[KW1]

As a lifetime Rapid Rewards customer, I'm so disappointed with SouthWest's customer service denying the transfer of mileage from my deceased parents' to my account. All rapid rewards members should know that Southwest Airlines will NOT  honor your legal will and transfer all ownership to your beneficiaries.

I am the Trustee. Upon my initial request, they asked me to provide the birth certificates, the death certificates and the Power of Attorney legal document. I provided all these documents.  Then I received an email denying the request. I made an additional request and they told me I had to log into the account and transfer the mileage myself (is this ethical?).  I weeded through stacks of documents of my parents, found a password that I thought might work and logged in, only to encounter the dual verification to a phone number attached to the account, which of course is of the deceased and is no longer operable. There is no technical way to log into the account of a deceased person! Therefore SouthWest keeps all the mileage. United, American and Delta all supported me through this transfer of mileage process. Why is Southwest not treating it's customers fairly in this situation and honoring the fact that mileage is an asset?

[TheMiddleSeat]

As you've noted and been instructed to do, you should just log into the account where the points are and use them to purchase tickets for yourself or anyone else.  It sounds like you don't have the password or phone associated with the account and I would suggest you spend your energy figuring out how to overcome that obstacle.  Southwest should be able to help reset an account password if you can prove ownership of the account.

--TheMiddleSeat

[dfwskier]

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@TheMiddleSeat wrote:

As you've noted and been instructed to do, you should just log into the account where the points are and use them to purchase tickets for yourself or anyone else.   

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That's what I have done.

[KW1]

Bingo- I don't have the Southwest log on password for my parent's account. I do know the user name / email address, but not the password.  I can't ask the system to reset password because then a link is sent to their email account, which I don't have the password for; and a dual verification to the phone number of the deceased, which I don't have and have been shut down.  So as you pointed out, Southwest should help me reset the password with the proper documentation provided (birth certification, death certification and power of attorney legal papers, which they asked me for and I took time to provide but then they said they cannot do anything to help).

[bec102896]

First off sorry for your loss.

 If you are able to get in to the account don’t transfer the points that’s a waste of money just use the points for whatever flights you need until the points are gone then you could report it and have them close the account or don’t tell them and the account would just stay open without activity.