Frequent flier mile donation benefits charities
Travel
CHRISTINE HICKS- USTA
"Tis the season." Here's my holiday discourse on giving creatively. Your American Advantage miles can be donated to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. They can also provide transportation for children from needy families who require medical treatment not available where they live, with the Miles for Kids in Need program. Or, you can donate to Operation Hero Miles, an organization that assists in providing travel for families of American military men and women who are being treated for injury at military hospitals around the world. In conjunction with Fisher House, air travel is provided to family members and close friends visiting U.S. servicemen and women hospitalized as a result of their service in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Maybe you would prefer to donate funds. In that case, you can give to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, where every dollar you give earns two AAdvantage miles. Or you can give to the United Service Organizations Inc. by sponsoring the USO Care Package program. For $25, you send a Department of Defense approved care package including prepaid worldwide phone cards, sunscreen and travel-size toiletries to a member of the armed forces deployed somewhere in the world. For your support, the USO will credit your AAdvantage account with 12 AAdvantage miles for every package you sponsor.

If the national parks are of particular concern to you, you can also donate and earn miles. A $100 (or more) donation to the American's Proud Partner campaign will earn you 10 bonus miles for every one dollar donated - and it's tax deductible.

American Airlines' frequent traveler program is not unique. USAirways works with some of the same organizations. They also partner with the American Red Cross, using donated miles to transport disaster relief workers. And the Air Charity Network also benefits, providing long distance medical air transport for medically indigent, low-income or financially vulnerable patients for appropriate and continu

ing care.

United Airlines works with 23 charitable organizations that use your donated miles to transport the medically challenged, and the U.S. Olympic Team, Special Olympics, ORBIS International (a nonprofit humanitarian organization dedicated to blindness prevention and treatment in developing countries) and Guide Dogs of America. Rotary International is on the list too, as are the Shriner hospitals.

Delta Air Lines offers donations to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, Canine Assistants, CARE (which fights global poverty), and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, among others. Northwest Airlines works with AirCares and lists no fewer than 37 charitable organizations that are helped with their unique travel needs through WorldPerks mileage donations.

If you are flying less frequently or have a paltry mileage balance likely to go unused or expire, consider making a donation of those unused miles this season. The cost is zero - though the benefit to someone in need is huge.

(Christine Hicks-Usta has enjoyed more than 30 years of globe-trotting as a member of the travel industry. Direct questions to her at Bee Group Newspapers, P.O. Box 150, Buffalo, NY 14231-0150.)