yes

200,000 back to UA for hurricane Katrina

na

In the right situation

1. No
2. N/A
3. Yes
4. Yes

Yes I have donated miles, about 250000 so far. I did this a lot more when domestic Canadian fares midweek were $3000 or so. Now there are good fares any day so this is not needed so much. I may be donating about 200000 more miles in the next 6 months to enable my Inner Mongolian friends to travel here. All depends on flight costs. If I can get tickets for $900 or so then I will pay cash. As someone pointed out earlier, miles may actually be worth more than bucks these days!

I'm new to the forum. I'm embarrassed to say I'm looking for people to either donate skymiles or sell them to me at a reduced rate.

Here is my situation. My only living relative that I'm close to is my Aunt Dot. That's short for "Dorothy." She is 96 years old. This past year when I talk to her on the phone she sounds so very tired. I'll told her for 10 years that when I get the funds I'll fly out to see her and we'll go have a nice dinner together. But the extra money just doesn't come in.

I'm single and work as a Home Health Aide. Right now I'm between assignments and no money at all is coming in.

I've told Aunt Dot I'm coming out by Dec. 6 one way or the other. I have to because I know in my spirit she won't be around much longer.

She's all I have. She's been there for me. I have to see her before she goes. This will be my good-bye.

I joined Delta Sky Miles. They told me tonight I have to have 37,500 sky miles to go from Oklahoma City to LAX or Burbank. Aunt Dot lives closer to Burbank. That's seems like a lot of miles to me. But that's what the said. I can't afford to buy Delta's sky miles.

If anyone here can donate some sky miles, I would be so grateful. My Delta number is SM# 2623672579.

Please feel free to email me for more information.

Thank you for just reading this.

Debbie

Lynda,

I'll give you the other end of the equation.

As a board member of a charitable non-profit organization (ALS of Michigan aka Lou Gehrig's disease), I've been graciously offered miles for our patient and fundraising needs, but the airlines don't have a means for us to accept the miles legally. Unless you're on their "approved" list of 501c3's, there is no possible way to open an account to deposit miles into. And if someone offers to *purchase* a ticket for our use, technically it's in violation of the airlines rules and regulations.

It's very frustrating to have to turn down such generous offers, but unless the airlines become more flexible (and charitable), we have no other choice.

Jcherney,

It is possible for individuals of frequent flyer programs to give award tickets to anyone they choose. So, for instance, if you wanted to auction an award ticket within the U.S. for a fundraiser, you could do that as long as the person who is donating the mileage award follows through and redeems the award in the name of the person with the winning bid, or if you needed a flight for medical attention for an individual, the donor would do the same - redeem the flight in that person's name. This happens all the time and is not against the program's rules. (BTW, the ticket donation would not be tax deductible and you could not guarantee the person getting the award that the flight would be available exactly when they might want it - they would have to deal with redeeming an award like everyone else - the seats might not always be available.)

Also, almost every airline gives free flights for fundraisers or medical emergencies through their community relations department (not through the frequent flyer department).

The cover story will be available Dec. 1 at InsideFlyer.com and it will cover this information. You can also learn more at MileDonor.com.

Good luck. There is a way to make this work for your organization.

-Lynda

Feel free to continue the conversation, but I wanted to thank everyone who has responded for the story we're publishing. You can read the article on Charity Miles at InsideFlyer.com starting Dec. 1.

Thanks again,
Lynda
InsideFlyer magazine

While that might be true of US-based FFPs (and some others), there definitely are programs where you cannot do this.

Debbie73160,

Sorry about your situation. I did a quick check of delta.com and there are definitely awards available on the nonstop OKC-LAX flights for 25,000 miles. Bear in mind that skymiles can also be redeemed on Northwest or Continental (although I doubt Northwest would be useful in this specific case owing to the location of their hubs). Alternatively, Southwest has return flights OKC-XXX-BUR for about $230 inclusive of taxes and fees (XXX = LAX or PHX usually, I think).