Airline Miles for Kerry

[UnapologeticLiberal]

So my dad has a lot of miles on US Airways, which filed for its second bankruptcy last Sunday and could face liquidation within the year. Delta and United don't look like they are in much better shape, and a lot of frequent flyers are jittery about their miles. I have been trying to figure out a way to protect my dad's miles, and tonight at a College Dems meeting, I had a great idea.

It looks like miles are pretty tough to protect: AirGuard, which provides insurance for frequent flyer miles, is no longer taking new customers, and if you use points.com to convert them to another airline, your miles lose about 90% of their value (10,000 US Airways miles = 581 miles on American, for example).

So instead of protecting them, I realized tonight that people with a lot of frequent flier miles can do something productive with them: use them to send college students and other people who want to help out but can't afford a plane ticket to key battleground states on or before election day to volunteer for Kerry. We would have to work out the specifics, but basically, I think we could have a website like milesforkerry.com or something like that where people with miles could fill out a form saying how many miles they can donate, and people who want to travel to battleground states can sign up to be on a list and tell us where they want to go and when (first, we would have to call the Kerry campaign in different states and ensure that they have work for volunteers and see if they can provide transportation from the airport and/or lodging). When someone donates miles, we will match them with the first person on the list whose flight can be accomodated with the number of miles donated (some flights cost 25,000 points, but these seats are hard to get - most require 50,000, depending on the cities and dates). In order to ensure that people are not just using this for a free trip, we can ask anyone who signs up to contact the Kerry campaign and sign up to volunteer, then call to ensure that they show up...if possible, we can institute some sort of mechanism where anyone who uses frequent flier miles and does not "report for duty" with the campaign has to reimburse the person who donated the miles.

If anyone here has miles that they would consider donating, please post here or e-mail me at [e-mail]. You do not need to make a firm commitment at this point...I am mostly trying to gauge whether or not enough people are willing to do this. I could also use some help thinking this program through and getting a website signed up, as well as contacting Kerry headquarters and promoting the program. So if anyone can help with some of the administrative stuff, please post here or e-mail me.

I am posting this idea on this message board to see if there is willingness to donate miles, and to get feedback about the feasibility of the program and how it should work. So please, comment away, and feel free to e-mail me with mile donations, questions, or suggestions.

[UnapologeticLiberal]

1. Bump

[UnapologeticLiberal]

2. This program might also work for Amtrak and hotel points

I first thought of airline miles because a lot of people are worried about protecting them, but I realized that while the campaign seems to have limited housing available for volunteers, I don't think they have enough for everyone, and people who can donate hotel points would probably also be doing the campaign a service. And Amtrak points would be helpful too, if anyone has them, for people who want to travel a few states over but are unable to drive for whatever reason. So if anyone has any airline miles, hotel points, or Amtrak points that they would consider donating, please post here or e-mail [e-mail]. Also, if you think you might be interested in going to a swing state if your flight or hotel were provided, please post here as well.