I’ve written about opportunities to do some good with your miles, and end of year and the holidays are a time when that becomes even more focal. We hoard miles for aspirational redemptions, but many of us don’t use them all. We have a lot in some accounts, or orphaned miles in others. But we can put them to work.
Give A Mile is a charity that uses donated miles to book flights of compassion for people trying to reach a loved one in hospice or critical care — because the cost of a plane ticket should never be the reason someone dies alone.
They’re asking for help to make 52 flights happen this holiday season – “52 final goodbyes.” Not a gala. Not a branding exercise. Just getting people onto planes when time is the scarcest thing they have left.
Most “donate your points” options are basically a black box where your miles are converted to cash at some miserable implied rate — and you’re never really sure whether your donation increased what the charity received, or just helped the airline reduce a balance sheet liability.
Give A Mile actually uses the miles to book tickets. And they do the unglamorous work: coordinating, verifying, and moving quickly. They’re volunteer-driven. And your miles go 100% to book flights, with no overhead (that’s covered by other donations).
They work with multiple currencies — but for U.S. domestic flights, United MileagePlus miles are particularly useful because they can be deployed quickly and across a large network, and Give A Mile is set up on United’s MileagePlus Miles on a Mission platform so your miles can be moved into their account and used.
Give A Mile’s site is full of real itineraries and real people. Here are two examples that show exactly what your miles turn into:
- “Father and Son Final Goodbye” Bismarck to San Francisco so someone could get to a father in hospice.
- “A Grandson’s Introduction, Right On Time” mother on a single income with a new baby, trying to reach her dying father so he could meet his only grandchild.
This isn’t abstract “awareness.” It’s a boarding pass. So if you’re sitting on a stash you won’t miss — or you’ve got a random balance you’ll never redeem well — this is the moment to convert it into something that matters.
Would you help me – and them – out and donate United miles to Give A Mile?
Umm, United (and any corporation) can just provide the free flights to bereaved families; they do not need to be like supermarkets asking us to donate a dollar to feed starving people… you have the food/planes, etc.
Oh, and there are totally more than just 52 people that need help. This is corporate virtue signaling. Worse. It’s taking credit for guilt-tripping your customers to give up some of their corporate pseudo-currency, just so that corporation can claim they ‘helped.’ I’m not buying it. Any of it. Bring out the pearls to clutch and the crocodile tears, y’all. Token P.R. B.S. The company should just offer the free flights. Period.
It would seem to make far more sense for (1) United to slash these sorts of bereavement fares on their own and (2) third parties to set up a charity not under UA’s control to administer this sort of thing so it isn’t subject to obvious conflicts of interest and self-dealing (e.g. UA can easily manipulate the price of the affected award flights).
Dont love UA, but do love this. My Mom was in isolation but had my Dad by her side during Covid when she passed and I didn’t make it in time for my Dad, but friends at his retirement home were by his side. If I ever do fly UA in the future, my miles will 100% go towards this every year.
Happy Holiday and hug your loved ones extra long when you see them.
@Gray — Thank you for also recognizing this farce for what it is, and for also proposing actual solutions.
No thanks participating in a charity from a company that continuously devalues there miles. No thanks to a company as miserable as United. I would rather walk to a loved ones funeral then ride this joke of an airline, with a joke of staff and a joke of a CEO.
@BA — Now that’s dedication!
Well call me a sap. I donated my last 6000 UA miles last year.
This year I’m donating AA miles to send an acquaintance from PRG to EWR to visit his mom in hospice. He’s a widower with 2 preteens and is currently unemployed.
Come on guys you don’t want to outlive your FF miles- do some good or gift some miles. We are fortunate- many are not.