Here’s another way to get rid of those pesky frequent-flyer miles. Actually, it’s not the miles that are pesky, it’s those notices that your miles are going to expire due to inactivity that get irritating.
Last year, I wrote about trading a few hundred miles for magazine subscriptions. But maybe you don’t need another Golf Digest laying around your house. Maybe you want to live out your belief that it’s better to give than to receive.
Most airlines allow you to give your miles to selected charities, and it’s even easier than buying magazines. In fact, it probably takes more clicks to find the donation site than to make the donation.
I’ve put together a list of airline donation sites to help the cause. I give credit to the folks at MileDonation.com for giving me a head start on finding some of the links. More about MileDonation below.
- Air Canada
- Air France
- Alaska Airlines
- American Airlines
- Cathay Pacific
- Delta
- Emirates
- Frontier Airlines
- Japan Airlines
- JetBlue
- KLM
- Lufthansa
- Qantas
- Southwest Airlines
- United
- US Airways
- Virgin Australia
Some of the other useful links at MileDonation.com are instructions on how a charity can solicit mile donations for itself, a form for joining their list of people seeking donated miles, and the list of published requests that others can give to.
You can also contact your favorite non-profit directly to see if they can accept miles into a matching frequent-flyer account (a fee will apply).
Of course, you don’t have to give your miles away. There’s always Cigar Aficionado.
[photo: “Airbus A319 C-GJWF,” by Doug, used under a Creative Commons license]
Clearing Customs 