It’s easy to accumulate Aeroplan miles. It’s also easy to donate some and make a difference in the world.
Donating Aeroplan miles is both simple and hugely rewarding in a day when there are so many great groups doing important work in Canada and around the world.
Visitors to Aeroplan.com/donate can find more than 250 charitable groups that accept Aeroplan miles. Charities use the miles to offset travel costs, including hotel/accommodations, flights and car rentals for projects they work on in Canada and across the globe. Charities also can use donated Aeroplan miles as prizes for fundraising, along with items obtained through redemption of donated miles, such as gift certificates or laptops.
Each charitable donation made through the Aeroplan member donation program is topped up with a 10% contribution from Aeroplan, a nice bonus.
In ten years of the Aeroplan Donate program, more than 560,000 million miles have been donated. Already this year, nearly 60 million miles have been passed along to worthy groups. Charities that can be given miles include Doctors Without Borders, The David Suzuki Foundation, Canada’s National Ballet School, Oceans Initiative, The Nature Trust of British Columbia and more.
The Aeroplan website lists the goals of each group in terms of miles, as well as miles donated. If you click on the individual charity you can learn more about the work they do and also get links to their main website.
I went online the other day and donated miles to the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, which was established in 1963 and hopes to keep at least half of Canada’s public land and water wild for all time. They also focus on protecting large, connected areas of Canada’s wilderness as well as wildlife, forests and parks across the country.
As someone who travels a good deal in this marvellous country of ours and see our national and provincial parks up close, I believe it’s a hugely worthy cause.
If you look on the “Explore Program” section of the Aeroplan Donate site, you also can read success stories about organizations that have benefitted from receiving Aeroplan miles.
Aeroplan members can donate miles whenever they like. They also can set things up so they donate two per cent of their miles on an ongoing basis. And they can set up automatic donations by going to their Aeroplan account, then selecting Personal Information – Your Donations – Making a difference one mile at a time.
Organizations or charitable initiatives that want to be part of the Aeroplan member donation program can get information by clicking here. Professional and semi-professional sports teams, political organizations and other certain groups aren’t allowed to take part in the program.
