What happens to my airline miles and hotel points when I die?

The starting legal position at every major U.S. airline is the same, and it's blunter than most people expect: miles are not your property, and the airline's terms say so explicitly. Delta's Membership Guide and Program Rules state: "Miles are not the property of any Member," and, "except as specifically authorized in the Membership Guide and Program Rules or otherwise in writing by an officer of Delta, miles may not be sold, attached, seized, levied upon, pledged, or transferred under any circumstances, including, without limitation, by operation of law, upon death." The same document lists "A Member is deceased" as one of the conditions under which Delta will simply close the account, at which point "Medallion Status, benefits, and/or miles in the SkyMiles account will be forfeited." Source

In practice, though, several airlines exercise discretion families don't expect from that blunt legal language. Based on American Airlines' own AAdvantage terms and conditions (confirmed via a search-engine-indexed excerpt of the terms rather than an independent direct fetch of aa.com in this pass — flagged as weaker sourcing below), AAdvantage miles likewise "do not constitute property of an AAdvantage member or their estate" and are "not transferable upon death" as a matter of right — but American reserves the right to make a one-time discretionary transfer to a named person upon submission of a death certificate and an affidavit, within one year of the death.

The pattern across airlines and hotel programs generally: nothing is owed to your family by contract, but many programs will do a one-time discretionary transfer if asked promptly, with a death certificate and estate paperwork. Ask the program directly rather than assuming either outcome.

What we could not verify: American Airlines' terms and conditions page (aa.com) blocked every direct automated fetch attempt in this pass; the AAdvantage quotes above come from a search engine's indexed excerpt of that page, not text we retrieved and read ourselves — treat the exact AAdvantage wording as secondary-sourced, unlike the Delta quote, which we fetched and read directly. We also did not check any hotel loyalty program (Marriott Bonvoy, Hilton Honors, etc.) in this pass.

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