Some airlines of the USA incl. AA, DL & UA are accepting donations of FF miles to Heromiles.org, which gets GIs home on leave from where the military planes from Iraq leave off (BOS, ATL, BWI, DFW). I find it a shame that Congress has not yet funded tickets all the way home for our troops, so in celebration of Veterans' Day & Thanksgiving I have donated 5183 DL miles & 1810 UA miles to HeroMiles. I want to encourage everyone to do the same & or write their Congresspersons. Btw, HeroMiles promises to return unused miles to the donors if Congress funds tickets for GIs, making this no longer necessary.

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Play the travel game 3 vacations into the future!

The web site is http://www.heromiles.org/ . Scroll down to the bottom of the site and select the airline, then follow the instructions to donate miles. This is apparently legitimate; it is supported by a Maryland Congressman's office, has gotten wide publicity, and my contribution of United miles was sent to and acknowledged from a UAL.com address. Regardless of how anyone may feel about the war in Iraq politically, this is a great way to support the troops.

Cool, BBRebozo! Believe it or not, my nickname is "Double B" because I aspire to the BB skill level in Volleyball + my middle name starts with B.

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Play the travel game 3 vacations into the future!

Much good Karma to you for your donation, Brendan. That was a very nice thing to do.

With respect to Congress funding the tickets, see my post of Nov 18, 2003 12:52 AM in this thread.

Essentially, what the news article says is that Congress has authorized the Army to spend up to $55 million from their Operation and Maintenance appropriation for this Fiscal Year to pay for the domestic leg of flights for soldiers on R&R from Iraq and Afghanistan. Army is still trying to work out how to implement this and whether it is legal in view of another law.

Note that even if this is implemented, it doesn't cover everyone, so the donated miles will still have a good use.

(The story also notes that as of Friday 14 November, over 60 million miles had been donated through www.heromiles.org alone.)

I learned of www.heromiles.org on Greta's show last night and made a large donation today. How about it FTers, let's help these soldiers out for the Holidays!

www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,105356,00.html

I have started a thread on US, instigating folks to fax/e-mail/call US and prodding them into participating. It looks like CO and NW also are not in the mix - anyone want to take up the charge and get them on board?

I just wanted to put in a plug for the Make-A-Wish Foundation also.

I find it kind of cheap of Delta to require a minimum of 5,000 miles to be donated. I have 1,200 miles just sitting in SkyMiles and nobody can use them. Way to go Delta. (and I don't want to use the miles for magazines, which I wouldn't read).

Luckily, United allows a minimum of 1,000 and I have just over that, so it's going to the troops.

Heromiles is a great program.

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Call Delta CS at 800-335-8241 prompt #1 then #6 and voice your concern.

To Do List
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Get US to join heromiles - DONE
Get CO to join heromiles - DONE

Get NW to join heromiles....


Also, check http://www.anysoldier.us/

[This message has been edited by CPRich (edited Dec 11, 2003).]

It is, NW is just pathetic to backlash against this program.

How bout get HP to join...I've got 6900 miles sitting in my HP account from a VS flight and nothing to do with them..

Do you really want a GI to endure the agony of an HP (America West) flight ?


Seriously, though, it's better than nothing.

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Play the travel game 3 vacations into the future!

Done. http://www.nwa.com/features/heroes.shtml