How to Donate Your Miles and Points to Support Hurricane Dorian Victims

I know watching the news stories about the devastation in the Bahamas caused by Hurricane Dorian can make you feel helpless. After a while, you just feel numb and you want to do something, do anything, but don’t know how you can help.

Luckily, most of the airline and hotel programs are making it easy to contribute in any way you can. Even if you don’t have the cash to spare, you can donate those random points you have here and there to the recovery effort. Even better, you can donate points if you have more of them than you know what to do with. Face it, it’s better to donate them than redeem them for some magazines that you’ll never read, overpriced luggage or an Amazon InstaPot. 

Most loyalty programs, at a minimum, partner with the American Red Cross while others may deal with less known, but no less important charitable organizations.

Hotel Programs

Best Western – https://www.bestwestern.com/en_US/rewards/redeem-awards.html

IHG – https://catalog.ihg.com/79462IHHCLUBIHGREWCB/shop/donations/_/N-116071

Choice Hotels – https://www.choicehotels.com/choice-privileges/redeem-points/donations

Marriott Bonvoy – https://giving.marriott.com/home

Marriott allows you to donate points to the Red Cross as well as World Central Kitchen. If you don’t know about this charity founded by Chef José Andrés, take a minute to see all of the work they do to bring food to those affected by disasters all over the world.

Hilton Honors – Hilton allows you to donate to any number of charities through PointWorthy where 4,000 points are equal to a $10 donation. All donations to the American Red Cross and will be matched with support from The Hilton Effect Foundation.
https://hiltonhonors3.hilton.com/en/earn-use-points/exchange/donate-points/index.html

Radisson Rewards https://www.gppsurveys.com/promotion/RedCrossDisasterReliefDonate.cfm

Wyndham Rewards – (Donations to Team Rubicon will go to hurricane disaster relief)
https://shop.wyndhamrewards.com/25968WYN0WNDHMWNDMRWRDS/shop/charity/_/N-124026

Hyatt – https://world.hyatt.com/content/gp/en/landing/help-make-a-difference.html

Airline Programs

Southwest Airlines – Southwest partners with the Red Cross, Team Rubicon and All Hands and Hearts for disaster relief
https://www.southwest.com/html/rapidrewards/promotions/donate-points-charity.html

Delta Airlines – https://www.delta.com/buygftxfer/displayDonateMiles.action

JetBlue – You can donate to both the American Red Cross and Americares to help with hurricane relief.
https://trueblue.jetblue.com/web/trueblue/charity

Alaska  – To donate miles to hurricane relief efforts, Alaska Mileage Plan members can log into their mileage account, click the donate miles link and select the Alaska Airlines Charity Miles pool. – https://www.alaskaair.com/mileageplan/ssl/Donate/DonateMiles.aspx

United  – You can donate to both the American Red Cross and Americares to help with hurricane relief.
https://secure.unitedmileageplus.com/CharityMilesSSO.jsp

American – On the American website, while logged into your account you can click on donate miles under the “Use Miles” tab. American allows donations to “Miles For Social Good”. The American Airlines Miles for Social Good program provides supports to organizations focused on providing humanitarian efforts, feeding the hungry, disaster response and contributing to future generations around the globe.

You can also earn 10 bonus American Airline miles per dollar thru Sept 20th when making donations to the Red Cross here.

Credit Card Programs

Discover – We encourage our cardmembers to donate their Cashback Bonus rewards to any or all of the organizations we partner with. To donate, call 1-800-DISCOVER or donate online through our Discover Card Account Center.

Citi ThankYou – Join Citi in the disaster relief efforts for Hurricane Florence. Visit redcross.org to make a cash donation or donate to the Red Cross with points at thankyou.com.

American Express – If you’d like to help, you can use your American Express Membership Rewards points by going to https://www.justgiving.com/amexpaywithpoints

There is no way to directly donate your Chase Ultimate Rewards to hurricane relief but you could always transfer points to programs like United or Hyatt and donate that way. Honestly, it would be better just to donate cash at that point, if you can.

If you know of any other links to donate points or miles, let me know and I’ll add it to the list.

I’m sending out positive vibes to everyone affected by Hurricane Dorian and I know this is going to be an ongoing struggle for quite some time. Hopefully some of the money donated through these means will help them through. I hope they know that we are there for them.

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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary

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