Originally Posted by jab
My simpleton thought on this is that the airlines will use our donations to lower their book liability on outstanding miles.
As I understand it, some(if not all) airlines have on their books the liability of FF Miles outstanding. If this is true then us consumers and holders of those miles help lower that liability. So keeping track of the donated miles and passing those along to those needing the miles would be important, at least from a GAAP standpoint.
Of course I could be wrong on everything above.
I think you right on everything above, except I don't think there is a real hard and fast link between the donation by us and the free seat donated by the airline.
I don't think an airline is ever telling families "Sorry, your kid can't go get his cancer treatment because our frequent-fliers didn't donate enough miles." I think the airline sets aside a pool of free seats every year and donates them to various charities. That's great.
Then, totally independent of that activity, they have a website asking for people to voluntarily take their miles off the books in the name of charity. It's purely a goodwill gesture on the part of holders of orphaned miles. I don't believe my donation would enable
extra kids to go get cancer treatments - that determination has long since been made whether I donate 0 or a million miles through those sites.
That said, I concede that we are all speculating here, and of course the airlines aren't going to offer up any information to confirm or deny what we're saying. I like the site Randy posted - there, one can sift through specific donor requests and click a link to give help to that person or organization. Of course that's not a perfect system either - I'd want to research the receiving charity a bit on my own - but it is cool in that it sets up a direct connection to the charity without the airline itself involved.