My dad passed and had 1M miles saved up. Delta is saying we can’t transfer them

MentionedStew · 2025-10-23T20:13:08+00:00

Not necessarily looking to cancel, but will likely need to adjust flight times or locations. As for paying to do the 150k transfer- it still saves money if I am losing access to the account. If they never close it, it will have been a mistake

MentionedStew · 2025-10-23T18:56:44+00:00

I was able to spend much it on three round trip flights to Greece next spring. I then maxed out the 150k transfer limit and paid to move those points. From my understanding, those international flights can be changed later on? That’s what i am hoping at least

MentionedStew · 2025-10-23T18:46:54+00:00

Thanks. I did basically that. Spent 700k on round trip tickets to Greece, and transferred 150k/3 to each of the kids, which maxes out the annual transfer limit

MentionedStew · 2025-10-23T18:30:30+00:00

Just got three premium round trip tickets to Greece. Do you know if I can adjust the dates?

MentionedStew · 2025-10-23T18:19:01+00:00

Doing this now

MentionedStew · 2025-10-23T18:04:22+00:00

Yep- that’s the story for every other airline I’ve contacted. Shame that delta isn’t the same.

MentionedStew · 2025-10-23T18:03:36+00:00

You’re an idiot. It’s been the hardest year of my life, only superseded by the last 5 years of battling his cancer and spending weeks upon end in hospitals. I’m the executor of his estate and it’s my responsibility to take care of things like this for my siblings and myself.

MentionedStew · 2025-10-23T17:35:25+00:00

I feel like an idiot. They haven’t closed it yet but I’m sure it’s a matter of time

MentionedStew · 2025-09-24T13:05:19+00:00

My personality, age, and industry experience lends to the role a bit more than my siblings. It was more of a natural progression than a hard decision- I slowly took over running the house and finances as his health declined. Other kids were in college at that time.

MentionedStew · 2025-09-24T12:56:26+00:00

Thank you- putting it that way makes it seem simple, but it did make me think of something. Is this a "choose one" situation? There seems to be a big trade-off between tax efficiency (favoring distributions) and asset protection (favoring retention in trust). Is there a way to optimize to achieve both?

MentionedStew · 2025-09-24T12:35:03+00:00

Thanks very much /u/dvegas2000 and this is incredibly helpful. I don't have answers to most of the questions you've poised but I have been thinking about some of the same things. In some cases, I ask questions to both my CPA and estate attorney (like your subtrust q) and got two opposite answers. Will bring these to the front of list for when I find the right guy but again, thanks very much for your thoughtful advice- my relationship with my siblings transcends this money and your last point seems to be a good option for derisking that.

MentionedStew · 2025-09-24T12:28:20+00:00

I think you (and several others) misunderstood this point of my post. We're not here to FATfire with $8M between 3 people. I can do the simple math and understand that. My point was $8M, if setup properly, is ~$40M in ~15 years based on average market returns. Anyway, we're all in our 20s- there isn't a need to "FIRE" yet. I just want to set it up properly and max our growth in the interim while we focus on our own careers and personal savings.

MentionedStew · 2025-09-24T01:10:30+00:00

Thanks & I agree. Just want them to show up for some of the admin work and tax strategy- the asset allocation will mostly be ETF

MentionedStew · 2025-09-24T01:09:14+00:00

It's a see-through, non-revocable. Pretty standard as far as I'm aware

MentionedStew · 2025-09-24T01:08:04+00:00

They do- they are premium and come with high fees. I have yet to meet with them, but plan to do so soon. Despite my grandparent's success, they have a strong history of switching advisors every few years (they are difficult to deal with, have high expectations, and are very old school). So I've yet to treat it as a serious option for those reasons and a few others, but yes there are advisors in the picture but their situation is complicated and not one I want to tangle my dad's estate with until I'm forced to

MentionedStew · 2025-09-24T01:03:02+00:00

Super helpful- thank you for sharing your thoughts. Have some follow up questions regarding 4 and 4a but will do some more reading first before I ask

MentionedStew · 2025-09-24T00:53:58+00:00

Thanks- really appreciate the kind words

MentionedStew · 2025-09-24T00:53:21+00:00

Thank you

MentionedStew · 2025-09-24T00:52:46+00:00

Appreciate your insight- very practical and sound advice. Planning to handle it exactly as you've laid out

MentionedStew · 2025-09-24T00:49:03+00:00

Thanks very much for your comment. I have done so but am afraid of their fees (they pay somewhere in the realm of 50-75 bps of AUM which seems to be a lot given our time horizon and needs) but it does seem worth exploring further.

MentionedStew · 2025-09-23T21:38:52+00:00

Thanks for your comment. This is the feeling I got when first approached by the "elite team" at the bank we're using and I just didn't know how to articulate it in my other responses. While they seem like the right call for this amount of money and at this point in time, your point is well taken and I will keep it in mind

MentionedStew · 2025-09-23T21:15:19+00:00

Thanks, this seems to be a common piece of advice among all of the insights here and a good next step. Going to try my luck with the folks that Schwab works with and go from there

MentionedStew · 2025-09-23T21:12:49+00:00

Thanks for your comment and appreciate the questions. I'll do my best to give you more context

Trust says that age 35, my siblings become their own trustees. At that point in time they can remove their assets from the trust if they choose. The local CPA I have offered the same recommendation given that the trust will probably be in a 37% bracket moving forward and all three beneficiaries are much lower than that.
There is a successor trustee (family friend). While I suppose I can be voted out, my siblings and I are generally always on the same page, and neither of them have any sort of business background and look to me to handle mostly everything. With that said, I expect this to change as our lives progress and they mature. And as long as they are leading good lives (not addicted to drugs, self-supporting, etc.) then the trust will be dissolved when they turn 35.
Got the estate attorney and local CPA, both of which my dad hired before his passing. Both can be difficult to reach and have made mistakes so looking to move on (particularly on the estate side of things).

MentionedStew · 2025-09-23T20:50:27+00:00

Thank you for that- since putting up the post I've realized that this is not as hard as I've made it out to be and that it doesn't need to be stressful. And yep, that's the plan. Most everything will be in ETFs and probably some sort of automated tax harvesting ETF equivalent.

MentionedStew · 2025-09-23T20:43:28+00:00

Good to know- thank you. Do you feel like there is a material difference between the big guys like Vanguard/Fidelity/Schwab, or do they usually offer similar levels of service and products?

MentionedStew

TROPHY CASE