Tag Archives for donation.
United does something really unique, and I was genuinely surprised by it five years ago at launch. Instead of picking their own corporate charities, and asking you to support their efforts with your miles, they allow charities to solicit miles directly. You actually decide which causes to support. That way your miles align with your values.
Give A Mile’s Year-End Campaign To Raise United Airlines Miles Give A Mile’s Year-End Campaign To Raise Air Canada Points Regular readers may know that I joined the board of Give A Mile about a year ago. There aren’t enough opportunities to use miles to accomplish charitable objectives. Most are airline-selected corporate charities. Give A Mile is unique because they take donations of miles and actually use the miles to book flights for a really worthy cause: helping people to be together with loved ones in their last moments. The goal is that people shouldn’t die alone. This is a small organization with a strong cadre of volunteers. There’s not much overhead. There’s no marketing department. Just people committed to do some good using miles. I’ve given a lot of my own miles to the…
Marriott partners with UNICEF in the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific in a program where hotels can add donations to guest folios on an opt-out basis. Generally $1 is added per night automatically, but guests can tell the front desk to remove the charge.
Autopilot opt out is the opposite of thoughtful philanthropy, so I was sympathetic to a reader who complained about feeling shamed by hotels that do this.
I think this is great. If this is something you want to support, you can earn more miles doing so. And if it’s not, you can ignore the offer. Of course in 2023 it’s not so simple.
Give a Mile is a non-profit that helps people in need with air travel, using miles donated by members. First they began working with Air Canada. They also have a partnership with United. I’d like to see this grow and expand.
They are on a campaign to raise 1.5 million miles to help connect people to share the moments of life. Give A Mile raises miles and books award travel so that no one has to die alone.
Thank you so much for your help! Over the weekend I asked for help raising United miles for Give A Mile, which uses donated miles to help people spend the last days of life with a loved one. I offered a match for donations.
Over the course of that match, the Give A Mile campaign went from having raised 218,000 miles to 600,000 miles on its quest to raise one million miles. That’s incredibly generous. There’s still two weeks left to help them reach their goal.
Several travel bloggers and frequent flyers are going to pull a crazy stunt tomorrow to raise money for charity. They’re helping to bring awareness and support for Give Kids The World, a charity that fulfills the wishes of dying children to experience Disney World.
Here’s their plan: ride every Disney ride in a single, 18 hour day. That’s 53 rides and over 20 miles of walking and running.
Have a few spare United Airlines miles? They could make a difference in the last moments of someone’s life. The miles sitting in your account can bring someone comfort, and bring family together with their loved ones before it’s too late.
I joined the board of Give A Mile which uses donated miles for trips of compassion. They are currently raising United Airlines MileagePlus miles to provide flights to people to spend the last days with a loved one. And if you’ll chip in a few miles, I’ll match them. I’ve already donated to this campaign. I’ll do more, and I’d appreciate your help.
One of the questions I’m asked most frequently is ‘how can I donate miles to charity?’ And the problem is that you really can’t unless you want to give to one of a handful of pre-selected groups your frequent flyer program endorses, or you want to directly book an award for someone out of your account. But this is not always true and you can make a difference.
Here’s an updated list on how to donate miles for tsunami relief efforts in Southeast Asia. Not everyone can spare tons of cash, that’s certainly understandable although in times of severe crisis I hope that folks will dig as deep as possible. But those of us with even a small amount of spare frequent flyer miles — possibly not even enough to use for free tickets — can help provide free travel for relief efforts. While minimum donations vary by program, in some cases you can give as few as 1000 or 5000 miles. You may have this laying around in an otherwise-forgotten account. These miles might even expire on their own, going to waste. But you can do some good with them. And since most frequent flyer programs keep accounts active with any activity…
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
