re: Are airline miles transferable to someone else?

Have him buy your airline ticket using his miles rather than transferring miles. The reason is the rate to transfer $1,000 worth of miles is not really useful to you or him. He'd spend $1000 and in return the only thing you'd get is 43,000 miles. If you just have him book your flights with all of your info, then there's no transfer fee. Instead what I would do is tell him the equivalent price range is around 40-43,000 miles and that you'd like to use his miles to book somewhere around two roundtrip tickets (assuming a value of 25,000 miles roundtrip).

I would sit down with them to book because they will need things like your frequent flyer number, date of birth, precheck #, etc. Once the airline ticket is bought, exchange your goods.

If you choose to go down the transfer route, note that he does not have to travel with you to use the miles. Once the miles are transferred to your account, they're all yours. Hope this helps