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This is a grim topic, but very good to know. If a person with Amex Membership Rewards points dies, the executor of the estate or an authorized account manager can request to transfer the deceased person’s Membership Rewards points to another person or to redeem points in any other way (e.g. transfer to loyalty program, redeem for gift cards, etc.).
Full details about Amex’s policy for managing deceased accounts can be found here.
A couple of years ago I had to deal with a situation where a family member with Membership Rewards points died and I was the executor of the estate. I wasn’t aware of Amex’s policy and didn’t think to look it up or inquire. Instead, since I was an authorized user on one of his accounts, I was able to transfer points to a loyalty program in my name. If I had know that keeping transferable points intact was an option I definitely would have done that instead.
I’ve added this nugget of wisdom to our Guide to Amex Membership Rewards.
Hat Tip: Larry via Frequent Miler Insiders.
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Hundreds of thousands of Amazon Prime points were lost after my spouse passed— and now we are stuck with poor value gift cards instead. Please don’t continue to mislead people about Amex’s “wonderful” policies. I was not informed that I might have the option to take over the account or that I would lose Amazon points saved up over a lifetime after my spouse’s sudden, unexpected passing.
Terrible!! What’s horrible is I had no idea that I was suppose to get Amazon Points!!! What! I should have thousands by now!
This was very helpful and timely for a friend of mine whose spouse recently passed away. Is there a chart somewhere for all the programs and their current practice. I’m sitting on a bunch of points and I would hate to think that any of them would evaporate upon my demise….
Good to hear that it was helpful. No, I’m not aware of any chart or post that summarizes what’s available like this.
It hasn’t been my experience that they allow point transfer, only redemption. Also, all docs have to be mailed in – death certificate, court appointment, etc. The process has been difficult and mail sent to the PO box was returned to me. Nice to (potentially) be able to get the value but not an easy process.
[…] Amex allows free Membership Rewards point transfer from deceased cardholder by FM. […]
Has FM done a full post Morten thing on the points game upon death!?
Nope
More to the point how does Amex know someone has died? And this is an important topic to discuss with many of us with seven figure Amex point balances. If one kept just the Amex business plus card and cancelled all the annual fee cards, why would anyone need to move any points? My several year decreased father still books UAL flights from the grave with his remaining ff points.
At some point the information about a person’s death gets to the banks. Maybe the info gets on the credit report — I’m not sure. Anyway, in my family member’s case, all of their credit card accounts were eventually shut down so it’s a good idea to move points out before that happens. Loyalty programs are different and don’t get shut down automatically.
This would have been helpful a few weeks ago. We ended up cashing out 600k of my mom’s MR points to Aeroplan. Found that to be the best option for future travel plans to Europe and elsewhere with nice routing rules. Also with the new program launched recently, hoping for few devaluations in the short term.
Do you know if Amex has the same policy with their cobranded cards, or is that governed by each individual program (Delta, Hilton, JetBlue, etc.)? And, what is Delta’s policy? (I think I read that DL miles die with the owner unless someone else has the pw and redeems them.)
With the others, the points are governed by the individual programs rather than by Amex. You are right that Delta’s policy is that miles expire when you do