Give Your Reward Points to a Loved One

As I have previously discussed, most reward programs allow participants to leave their points to their heirs. While this process can be tedious, for some the value of the rewards is worth it. Recently, in Boston a deceased client left almost $10,000 in gift cards as a result of his award program. People that do not account for their reward points before death will lose the opportunity to leave the rewards to their heirs. A 2011 survey done by LoyaltyOne revealed that the average household accumulates about $622 worth of points and miles in a year.

If a client would like to leave theirpoints behind he may want to consider including a beneficiary of the rewardprograms in his will. By adding the programs to the will the executorcan easily identify them. Additionally, by naming an heir it can reducefriction and help executors with the estate administration. The downside toadding reward programs to a will is that it might raise legal costs in willpreparation, and possibly draw attention to tax authorities which could slow down the estate administration process. According to the Chicago Tribune,most experts say its best not to include the rewards programs in a will, but toinclude them in a separate document so that the account numbers and emailsassociated with the programs are available.

See, Frequent Flier Miles Don’t Have to Die With You,Chicago Tribune Business, Mar. 1, 2013.

See Gerry W. Beyer & Mikela Bryant, Rewards from the Grave: Keeping Loyalty Program Benefitsin the Family (2011). Estate Planning Developments for TexasProfessionals, July 2011. 

Special thanks to BrianCohan (Attorney at Law, Law Offices of Brian J. Cohan, P.C.)for bringing this article to my attention.