My Spectacular Goof with a Deceased Relative’s IHG Account

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Two years ago, my father-in-law sadly passed away and left behind some loyalty accounts. One of them was IHG. At the time of his death, most of his points were already redeemed for a trip to Japan, so my sister-in-law decided to just leave it be. She was added as a second guest on all the reservations, and didn’t want to deal with the hassle of transferring the points. BTW, IHG does allow the inheritor of the estate to claim the IHG balance at no cost.

I did try to persuade her to go that route, but things just never lined up. Then the Covid pandemic struck, and our Japan plans went up in smoke. We procrastinated and put the issue on the back burner, and just never got the points transferred over. Instead, my SIL decided to just use up the points as the need arises. She also told me I was welcome to help myself to the stash anytime (130k points total). Naturally, I was planning to reimburse her since she actually bought them for 0.5 cents apiece. Why, I have no idea.

You know those emails IHG sends out advertising the 100% bonus on purchased points? Some people actually respond to them, thinking it’s a terrific deal never to be repeated again. Never mind the fact that she has a SIL who has been messing with miles and points for literally decades, and who wouldn’t mind giving her opinion if she bothered to call. But I digress…

Regardless, the points were paid for, and there was nothing to be done other than inventing a time machine.

Fast forward to present day

I’m currently planning a trip to Montenegro where I hope to meet my family from Belarus. A lot hinges on Belarus not assisting  Russia with invading Ukraine and getting sanctioned as a result. Speaking of, I just realized that tomorrow (the day this post goes live) is the predicted date of the invasion. Obviously, I hope and pray everything is calm, and not because of my travel plans.

Anyway, my family would need to overnight in Podgorica (the capital of Montenegro), and I found an IHG-affiliated hotel that would fit their needs perfectly. At 18k IHG points per night/per room it seemed like a good deal. So, I turned to my FIL’s stash. The next day the reservation was inexplicably cancelled and his account was locked.

IHG has a nasty habit of locking accounts, and this isn’t the first time it happened. I’m sure the fact that it was an international reservation triggered some sort of fraud alert. From my past interactions, I knew that as long as I verified his account details, things would be ok. Except this time they were not.

The agent grilled me on all the personal details on the account, including the last stay. I answered everything correctly, but that wasn’t enough. She asked  to speak to my FIL. This is the point when I should have hung up and let my SIL take it from here. Unfortunately, she is super busy right now with her work, and I knew the issue would just drag on.

So, I told the agent my FIL is unfortunately dead, and will not be able to speak to her. I tried to explain that we are relatives who are just looking to use up the points, and could she please unlock the account as a one-time courtesy. No dice. She once again said that she needs to speak to my FIL. Hello? At that point I started getting annoyed. Yet I still didn’t hang up for some unknown reason. She put me on hold, and came back to tell me the account is now permanently locked.

If we wanted the points, we would need to email the death certificate. To be fair, that’s the policy of IHG, so I don’t fault the agent. And that doesn’t seem like such a terrible thing, right? So, I emailed all the info they requested. And then (after the email was sent) I Googled IHG terms and conditions relating to deceased accounts and discovered one minor detail. The request had to be emailed within a year of someone’s death. And in our case it’s been two years. Facepalm. Once again, the time to Google was before contacting the company.

My heart dropped. My SIL paid $600 for these cursed points. If IHG decided to take them away, I would feel compelled to reimburse her. Sure, maybe IHG rep would not notice the date of death, but I really didn’t feel like chancing it. So, I called IHG…again.

All is well that ends well

Immediately, I asked to speak to a supervisor. I was connected to a very nice lady, and she said she would transfer the points to my SIL’s account. She found the email I sent, though ironically, the death certificate didn’t come through. So, I emailed it to her directly, and she took care of everything on the spot. I can’t tell you how relieved I was when that happened. I thanked her profusely.

So, in a way, things worked out for the best. The points are now safely in my SIL’s account, and we don’t have to worry about IHG randomly locking it up. At least she is alive and can verify everything personally.

But the moral of the story is that you should not procrastinate on stuff like that. You never know when a company will choose to enforce the terms. If we just did it to begin with, I wouldn’t have a minor heart attack now.

Sure, $600 worth of points is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but still. Oh, and one more thing. “Hang up/call again” principle is your friend in this crazy hobby. Actually one more: Don’t buy points if you have no immediate plans for them!

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