Donation of Airline Miles?
 

Hi,

I'm an independent Producer in Manhattan, wanting to cover an event in West Palm Beach along with one crew member, on January 10,11,12.

I need 50,000 miles for Delta Airlines, looking for 10 people who can contribute 5000 miles each.

I need to book as soon as possible.

Credit in the program, to each person, will be given as well as website acknowledgement and link to your sites if any and copy of program.

Please - help me.

Wish you all a happy holiday season and a happy new year 2008.

Thanks,

Hapy_Pupy
Producer

OK, here's 10,000 miles. Now you only need 8 more people. ((b))

Dear Budman,

Gee, Thanks so much for your generosity!!! Bless you.
please write to [email protected] so I can give you
more details about the program. and have your name and details -Subject matter: Donation of air miles

Thanks again,

Hapy_Pupy

And here I thought when I saw the title of this thread it was a suggestion to donate unused FF miles for our military people to get them to the airport closest to their home once they are flown by the military out of Iraq or Afghanastan to a military base in the US. Silly me.

Two round-trip tickets on Amtrak are under $500.

Isn't it really cheap to fly NYC to West Palm? Like about $89 on Southwest, or even less? Seems like a waste of miles.
:)>-

I just looked it up. You have to fly from Long Island to West Palm on Southwest Airlines, and fares are as low as $69 each way. I'd save the 50,000 mile request for a more expensive cross-country trip.
:)>-

You can take the LIRR to the Ronkonkoma station and take a cab from there to the airport.

Southwest is probably the least expensive airline. YOu might also check with JetBlue out of JFK.

To LoveItaly:

If you're not the kind to support independent artists' endeavors and creative people, there's absolutely no need to be sarcastic.

No one likes the war and what's going on, makes me mad and I hope a change next year will result in better decisions.

I appreciate all the other replies, thanks a lot.

I'm a freelancer and intend airing this on FreeSpeech, no income of money expected. I will be buying HD tapes, and be incurring additional tech expenses. I will be talking tomorrow evening to one of the hotels there if they will put us up, in exchange for a tax-deduction letter from my fiscal sponsor!!!

That's why I'm asking for help.

Thanks,

Hapy_pupy

Producer

Pupy -- there has to be a better outlet than this one to realize your endeavor - especially since you're in Manhattan!! Have you contacted the Freelancers Union or perhaps SVA might offer some suggestions??

Sorry, but I'm with LoveItaly. With all respect to your artistic endeavors, you're asking people to GIVE you miles. DONATING miles implies you have 501c3 status or have need of the miles on some humanitarian basis. (I don't know what you're talking about with regard to the hotel donating a room, but good luck with that.)

I'm on the West Coast, so I didn't realize there were flight options under $100 per person. You'd probably have a much easier time asking people to GIVE you $20, $50, whatever.

P.S., I have a distant and loose connection to the Sundance Institute, and I've seen many pleas for financial help from aspiring artists. Some advice: You're going to get rejections, and you need to learn to accept them with grace.

Exactly what is the event and what will your creative endeavor produce and for whom?

Hi Jean,

Many independent documentaries get done because there is a conduit called "Fiscal Sponsor". This Fiscal Sponsor lends it's non-profit status to an independent artist, filmmaker so on so forth, after due acceptance. This enables the individual to carry out projects (apply for grants, funding, solicit cash donations or in-kind contributions etc).

That's how a person can get a hotel etc to sponsor a stay, since the hotel gets a tax-deduction letter for in-kind value on the letterhead of my fiscal sponsor on behalf of my project. If they have 2 rooms, would they rather let it go waste or do this? plus they get credit on the program and website credit.

Many people like me do this.

However, I did not offer to give an in-kind value letter for donated miles because the IRS does not recognize "donation" of miles for whatever purpose it may be.

I decided to try this forum thinking that this being a travel forum, there might be people having and willing to donate miles. and you say, I might be better off asking money! I don't ask for money but in-kind so people know exactly what their donations of whatever it may be, is being used for.

well, time to make some calls....

By the way, I'm used to successes and rejections but there is no need for anyone to be unneccessary sarcastic and I stick to that view.

Hapy_pupy

As I understand FF programs, airlines allow donation of members' miles only to certain charities, like returning soldiers, children in need of medical treatment and accompanying parents, etc. Is your fiscal sponsor an organization that has such designation with an airline?

If one person wanted to give you enough miles for a ticket, that person could just obtain the ticket for you. It is rarely (if ever) possible to combine miles from different members to purchse a single ticket.

Just made a quick call to our travel services department and, no, you cannot combine miles from different, unrelated parties towards the purchase of one ticket. The only caveat they could think of was if the person was in the military.

Miles for each ticket have to be redeemed from one Skymiles account. The fee to transfer miles from one account to another is $0.01 per mile plus a $25 transaction fee, so each contributor would have to pay $75 in addition to the 5000 miles.

Skymiles can be donated through Delta's Skywish program to the following participating charities:

100 Black Men of America
AID Atlanta
American Red Cross
Boys & Girls Clubs of America
The Breast Cancer Research Foundation
Canine Assistants
CARE
Fisher House Foundation
Hands On Network
Latin American Association
Make-A-Wish Foundation
UNICEF

Hapy,

What makes you think that sarcasm is unnecessary? Is it the same thing that makes you think that you can ask for donations without so much as a a brief explanation of what you're going to do?

Using 50,000 miles (even if they're given freely) to buy a ticket that could be purchased for $69 is nothing short of "bad business judgement". I hope this "good cause", whatever it is, is better thought out and better run than this transportation issue.

Meanwhile, we still don't have a clue what this "good cause" actually is, or why we'd want our name in some program supporting it.

Getting a free ticket is a moot point. You want to leave in two weeks, and you don't even know the process for transferring miles. And that's not sarcasm.

I still think you'd have better luck standing outside Starbuck's and asking for cash gifts to your project. That's not sarcasm either, but some people call it panhandling.

I guess hapy_pupy thought Budman was serious, lol.