A wallet full of credit cards may not look like part of an estate, but those accounts can contain something surprisingly valuable: thousands (or even hundreds of thousands) of unused points, miles, or cash-back rewards. When a cardholder dies, family members understandably focus on bank accounts, insurance, Social Security, bills, and the credit card balances themselves, making credit card rewards after death easy to overlook. Yet rewards accumulated over years of spending can potentially be worth hundreds or thousands of dollars, depending on the program and how they are redeemed. There is no single rule requiring every card issuer to handle those rewards the same way, and closing an account without checking its terms can complicate matters. Here’s what families and cardholders should understand before valuable rewards disappear unnoticed.
