Transferring airline miles?
Does anyone know the rules around transferring airline miles to a family member and whether there is a way to do it without paying a fee? I have a lot of United and AA airline miles that I don't need since 99% of my travel is for work, which is how I accrued so many miles. I would like to transfer them to my dad so he can use them for their vacations but when I looked online there is a fee/lost miles to transfer. Does anyone know of a way to do it without paying the fee? Since it is my parents I'm ok with giving them the log in to my account but not sure if that will work to enable them to buy tickets for themselves with my miles since I'm not also flying. I just accumulated the miles through flying and never used them so not sure how all of this work.
Parent Replies
The best way to do this is to just book through your account for them. You are allowed to buy tickets for others from your account (you will enter their names when asked who the passengers will be). There isn’t a way to transfer without incurring the exorbitant fees.
Hi,
As far as I know, there is no way to transfer miles for free. You can share miles on AA which is less expensive than buying miles, but what I do is use my AA miles to make a reservation in my family member's name. I also have used my mother's United miles to fly my son home to the Bay Area from his college in NY. There is no extra fee using miles to make a reservation for someone else.
You generally can buy tickets for whomever you want with your miles through your account. It's much more efficient than transferring them the miles.
I believe the easiest/cheapest way would be to give them your log in and let them book flights for themselves using your account (you don't have to be traveling with them). I've found that transferring miles is expensive and usually not worth it, unless they just need a small amount of miles to add to their own miles for an award ticket (or something along those lines).
NEVER, EVER transfer the miles. (I can't emphasize that enough! Just don't do it.) Simply book the award tickets in their name using miles from your account. People book award tickets for other people all the time - children, friends, etc. You can book the tickets for them or give them your log in and they can book the tickets themselves. (You do not need to be present when they fly.) The only caveat that I would note is that some foreign carriers require the credit used to pay the taxes/fees on an award ticket to be presented at check-in as a "fraud prevention measure". So be sure you/they keep track of that information, if traveling internationally.
It may vary according to airline, but I believe you can just have them log into your account and purchase a ticket using your miles in their names. I don't think you have to be traveling. I have done this with my own account to purchase miles tickets for family members on trips that I'm not traveling on without a problem.
My in-laws gave us their password and allowed us to book tickets under our name for free. This was through Hawaiian Airlines. If they would have “transferred” the miles we would have had to pay a transfer fee based on the amount of miles gifted to us. We did have to pay taxes on tickets.
Really easy to use miles for family. Can either have them log in and do it or you can do it for them. Just use link to book with award miles and then put their names in as passengers. Fairly simple and much better than transferring!
The airlines are charging for everything, including transferring the miles, but.... they can get in your account and get the tickets directly from your miles. In other words you are buying their tickets with your miles, no problem at all....the tickets are issue with their names .
I always just purchased the tickets for my family members using miles, rather than transferring them. You do not have to be flying with them to purchase the tickets in their names.
Here are a couple of web sites that might help you:
https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/help/faq/award-flight-reservations…
This one states that on United, you can book flights in another person's name. So just giving them access to your account should make it pretty easy for them book their own tickets. Alternatively, you can ask them for their travel details and book it yourself, for them
This one's an older post, but has some useful information:
https://thepointsguy.com/2015/04/using-points-and-miles-to-book-award-t…
good luck!