Wills and Frequent Flyer Miles

[k5hdu45]

My wife and I are redoing our will and wonder how SWA handles the miles that we accumulate ? The account is in my name, and if I pass, do the miles transfer to my wife ? If we both pass, can the miles transfer to my children ? What is SWA policy ?

[dfwskier]

Don't try to transfer points . The airline charges a a penny a point to transfer points - thus killing most of the value.;

Just make sure your heirs know your account logons and passwords and simply keep the accounts open and use the points as needed.

That's what I have done -- even years later..

[DancingDavidE]

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@k5hdu45 wrote:

My wife and I are redoing our will and wonder how SWA handles the miles that we accumulate ? The account is in my name, and if I pass, do the miles transfer to my wife ? If we both pass, can the miles transfer to my children ? What is SWA policy ?

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The account can continue to book travel with the points for the survivors as long as it is active and has credentials to log in. I don't know the official policy. 

But my main suggestion would be if this is a significant amount of points is to start using them for the family members now. 

And just for reference at the estimated value $0.015/point you'd need over 300,000 points to be worth $5,000 in the estate. Transferring the points at $0.01/point fee would be $3,000 cash that someone would have to pay to make the transfer. I don't believe it can be deducted from the value of the points themselves. So leaving someone $5,000 worth of points would cost that person $3,000 out of pocket.

Besides the transition you are describing (hopefully a long time from now) there is only the chance to lose the credentials, have a fraud issue, conflict over who is using them in what quantities, and the points generally devalue over time. 

There are only a few opportunities for redeeming a big amount of points at once for special events otherwise it will be thousands or tens of thousands of points at a time for flights, or tens of thousands of points at a time for other redemptions.

Start taking those trips with the family now.