Need Help with Transferring Deceased Husband's United Miles to my Account

Call the same AI agent back and insist on speaking with an operator or human. Eventually you'll get through.

Another option: if your late husband had any status there is typically a dedicated customer support number that is staffed by humans. That is probably your best bet.

My condolences for your loss, and good luck with United!

Very sorry to hear about your late husband and my condolences.

I would suggest you post your question on the FlyerTalk message board for United Airlines (https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/united-airlines-mileageplus-681/). You will find people with much deeper knowledge of United's operations there than here.

First, sorry for your loss.

When I really need to speak to a human at United - I just call the United number - and then press the option of "book a reservation" and then tell them what I need. They will transfer you. It's the quickest way in my opinion.

If you know his password, you can simply use them from his account.

Thank you, everyone, for your quick and helpful responses. Carol, that seems like such an easy solution. I will try that when it's time to book.
This is hard enough without having to jump through VA hoops that turn out to be of no help.

Adding my sympathies to you and also seconding Carol's suggestion. United charges a fee to transfer miles ($7.50 per 500 miles plus a $30 transaction fee) so using his account to book will be much less costly for you.

While you might be able to simply use his account to book flights for a while, getting the miles moved into your own account would be a better long term solution and would simplify using them.

Until you do that, you would need to monitor and maintain your late husband's United account, his email account, and his mobile phone, all of which are used when booking award flights or doing other tasks (his phone will be needed at some point to validate log-ins and redemptions with codes sent by SMS messages). These are not big lifts, but you probably have a lot on your plate now and keeping his phone and all his accounts alive indefinitely just adds more tasks to juggle (and keeping phones alive costs money).

If you're only talking about a small number of miles and you will be able to use them in the near future, probably not a big deal. If its a lot of miles and you just want to leave them parked for a while, I would try to get them transferred. If you have your own United account, it would also effectively "merge" the two, which means fewer leftover miles would be "orphaned" in his.

FWIW, since frequent flyer miles are valuable, dealing with getting them transferred to a spouse or other family member after the passing of a loved one is not an unusual request - United will know all about what's needed and they deal with this regularly. Not sure if the fees mentioned above by CL apply in the case of a death of a family member, but it's worth checking.

Worth noting: While United is pretty relaxed and permissive about booking miles for family members and others besides the individual whose miles are being used, fraudulent use of frequent flyer miles is a concern for all airlines, and they all take steps to police inappropriate activity. Other airlines are very hard-core and are actively looking for cases where flights are booked for someone other than the person whose miles are being used, and they've taken extreme steps to limit or prohibit one's ability to do so (I'm looking at you, Qatar...). With United this is probably a minor issue, but eventually you may just want to keep things simple for yourself by moving the miles into your own account.

Hope some of the above is useful.

Thank you, David. I have attempted to merge the accounts but have received a message that the names in our mileage accounts do not match and that I would have to change my name and use appropriate documentation to do so. VA was of no help. There are over 95,000 miles in his account which would be used in one round trip (and even then probably not quite enough miles) to France.

While typically I would agree with David that it would be best to go through official channels for this, from everything I've read, it sounds like not only will United probably charge a hefty fee for doing this, but they have the discretion to refuse it as well. If there's not a large amount of miles in there (and I'm talking over 200,000), I would just use them as soon as you can. You won't get the status he had, but you'll certainly get the miles, and I would imagine that would work for your purposes.

If you decide to go this route, I would definitely not let United know that your husband is deceased. In other words, try using his miles first, and if it's just too much of a headache for you, then go the other route. But I would imagine you would have to send them a copy of his death certificate and also get some kind of notarized statement saying that you are the executrix, if you are, and all the rest of the paperwork you would need for that. That could be as much of a headache as just monitoring his email and such.

Lindy. I just read your last post, and agree that you should just go ahead and use them. That makes the most sense, especially since it's under 100,000 miles. Good luck with that, and enjoy your trip. I am sorry for your loss.

Good points made above by Mardee and others, and I don't completely disagree. But I'll add one more small wrinkle that has not been mentioned yet, at least not insofar as to how this would impact the decision: Status.

There are multiple kinds of "status" but here's one that may make a difference: members who have a United credit card have access to greatly expanded award seats, and at a substantial discount. If Lindy's late husband had (and still has) a United card - but Lindy herself does not - that's another factor to include in the weighing of options. 95K United miles can be a useful amount, and if the account holder has a United card, those miles will be much more valuable for redeeming international business class seats (if that's her goal). Occasionally, the discounts can be dramatic (eg scoring a business class flight from US to Europe for just 80-90K, when non-cardholders would be charged 300-400K). United has recently shifted to this model where cardholders get significant (surprisingly deep) discounts on selected flights (not all flights). To keep/get this discount, the account holder's United card must be active when booking the flight - so there's one more thing (that has a cost) to maintain.

Of course, this is not the most significant issue to get stuck on, just another small detail to include in the mix when weighing options.

Great advice above!

Have you looked into United’s Mileage Pooling? You can set this all up on-line using your husband’s sign-ins and such. Appoint yourself as the Pool Leader and move his miles to you. No fees attached. You will have to use the miles on United flights only apparently…no code share…worth a look.

When I needed more miles to take advantage of a trip deal with miles, I created a pool, had my 94-year old non-traveling Dad join, and transferred some of his miles over to the pool for my use (with his blessing, of course) when booking the ticket. Right now there are 17 miles left in the pool, but we are keeping it open in the event of other transfers. My spouse is part of our “pool” as well.

I am very sorry for your loss. I just dealt with this exact same situation this year with Delta. I would definitely just use those miles and book yourself a ticket. I don't see any point in bringing United into it.

Another consideration not mentioned so far is: How long can you legally keep a deceased person's credit card account open after he/she dies? You might ask your estate attorney. My impression is that accounts have to be closed relatively quickly and goodby miles. If you can pool the miles before the account is closed you might still be able to use them. Sorry for your loss and good luck.

Anecdotal and personal experience only here, but closing the credit card did not close the mileage account...they are totally separate

Anecdotal and personal experience only here, but closing the credit card did not close the mileage account...they are totally separate

That is certainly true for credit cards directly associated with a single airline (eg a United card or a Delta card or an American Airlines card). However,...

accounts have to be closed relatively quickly and goodby miles...

For points earned with "bank" cards, which are not tied directly to an airline and which can be transferred to multiple airlines (eg Amex points, Chase Ultimate Rewards points, Citi Thankyou Points) the risk mentioned immediately above by NickB is real. There may be options to get around that (involving transferring those points to another card or to an airline program), but it's a real thing one needs to be aware of if closing one of those cards - it can indeed result in the points vanishing.

I used United's pool option to consolidate my late husband's points with mine. I agree with others who advise not calling United about this. You will pay per mile IF they allow it.

Clarification - my specific experience is limited to Delta miles and an AMEX card.

I also used some Alaska miles - they were not tied to a credit card, just a frequent flier account.

I'm interested in the pooling option. Do I sign in as myself and invite him to join or the other way around? I need for me to be the "pool leader", correct?

Lindy, unfortunately, I don't think you'll be able to do that. Since your husband is deceased, you can't set up a pool with United. I don't know this personally, but I just ran it through AI, and it gave a lot of good sources that would lead me to believe that this is true. And I can see it being true because your deceased husband can't agree to the pooling.

I think it could get really messy if you try it. Just go with spending his miles as soon as you can. 😊 And while status is nice, with only 95,000 miles, which means at the most, one trip, it's not going to matter that much. I would just be careful with the pooling.

Thank you for your research and advice, Mardee.

I also want to thank everyone for their kind thoughts. My condolences go out to those of you who have had to go through the same as I.

In my case there would be one additional consideration. I have lifetime premier status. My wife has the same status as the companion. If my account were closed she would loose that status.

Re: United’s pooling. If you have your husband’s Mileage Plus account number, his password to his account, and access to his email, you could do this…you’d be basically responding for him to your invite as the pool leader. The instructions how to set this up are on United’s website. Good luck! I think this is a good option for you. 💐

Lindy, I am so sorry for your loss.

Lindy... I sent you a private message.

I would add one note on the pooling. I created a United pool, invited my Dad, and he moved his miles into the pool. I now have 2 sets of miles: my own miles (prior to the pool) and his miles in my pool.

I can book a ticket with one or the other set of miles, but not combined. (I tried and confirmed this.)

If I wanted, I could transfer my miles into the pool, comingling them with my Dad's. Then I could use all those pooled miles to buy a ticket.