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Anonymous

20 Dec 2019

SeedlyAMA

What happens to my credit card subscriptions when i die?

Sorry, this is quite a morbid question but what happens to my credit card subscriptions when i die? is it automatically terminated? in that case then what happens to my rewards such as miles or cashback? does it automatically get transferred to others? thanks for the insight!

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Cedric Jamie Soh

20 Dec 2019

Director at Seniorcare.com.sg

I like morbid questions lol. but its useful to plan for your families.

Unfortunately, if you ask them, nope, miles and reward points are not transferrable upon death. This is the official stand.

Like what Elijah wrote, banks may not know about someone's death, so a family member can log in and transfer all the miles and points out to another receipent.

Though I think most relatives will be grieving and hard to carry out such steps till most institutions and banks are aware of the person's death.

Kinda hard to think favourably of a relative who immediately go to transfer bank points upon death of his loved one. :P​​​

Aaron Wong

13 Dec 2019

Founder at The Milelion

I wrote an article summarising each bank's policy regarding credit card points upon the death of the cardholder: https://milelion.com/2018/08/20/what-happens-to...
American Express

Under the T&Cs of our cards, MRs cannot be transferred nor put into a will. 

“Under Membership Rewards Terms and Conditions, Membership Rewards points accrued are not the property of the Card Member and are non-transferable.”
Maybank

With regard to your enquiry, Treats Points (TP) are not transferable. Upon termination of the Credit Card, the TP are forfeited.
UOB

We would like to advise that in the event that the cardholder passes away, the rewards points in the account will be forfeited.
DBS

I refer to your query and please note that DBS Points earned may not be transferred to any other Card Account of the Principal Cardmember, or to any third party, and are not exchangeable for cash or credit.

You may wish to know that the Principal Cardmember may use the Redemption Voucher himself/herself or permit a Supplementary Cardmember to use the Redemption Voucher. To redeem a Reward, the Cardmember must present the original Redemption Voucher, NRIC and his/her DBS credit card at the relevant participating merchant(s). A Supplementary Cardmember may redeem the Reward provided the Voucher bears the Principal Cardmember's authorised signature and Card Account number.

(that isn't a whole lot of good if the principal cardmember isn't around to sign it!)
Citibank

In a live chat session with Citibank, the attending CSO confirmed that neither ThankYou points nor Citi Miles could be transferred to a next of kin.
HSBC

We advise that the points are not transferrable but can be redeemed by the next of kin after we receive the letter and death certificate of the deceased. Once the documents have been successfully validated, the relevant team will contact the next of kin.
OCBC

 Necessary paperwork to be submitted by the next-of-kin, OCBC Bank will verify the necessary documents and customer’s status will be updated. Once verified, we can convert the customer’s remaining points into vouchers from eg. NTUC FairPrice or Robinsons. The vouchers will be sent to the (deceased) customer’s existing mailing address

Unless your trustee is aware of these awards and benefits, and have access to them to do something about them, they will be forfeited. Similarly, family members are generally not legally responsible for debts on credit cards left behind by the deceased.

The banks would not know, and your family members will need to take care of it for you (if you have shared your passwords with them to access during emergencies). Over time (after demise of a person), then miles, rewards might be forfeited as part of the banks' cards tnc, so short answer is they will be forfeited and not get transferred to others.

I highly doubt it will not be automatically terminated - banks are not informed when you do pass awa...

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