In December 2020, The Points Guy partnered with United Airlines for Giving Tuesday, an international day of charitable giving celebrated on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving (Dec. 1 in 2020), for their annual Miles on a Mission campaign. The Miles on a Mission campaign first launched in October 2019 as a first-of-its-kind crowdsourcing platform that gives customers a simple, easy way to donate miles to non-profit organizations and charities in need of air travel.
Since 2019, the campaign has helped raise more than 129 million miles and is one of the many ways that The Points Guy and United Airlines give back to communities. With travel at a slowdown this past year due to the pandemic, The Points Guy wanted to do something with theor ever-growing collection of airline miles and encourage the public to do the same!
As part of this year’s partnership, United Airlines matched all miles donated at a 1:1 ratio for up to 5 million MileagePlus miles for its Miles on a Mission program. This initiative included 40 non-profit organizations and campaigns that work on a myriad of causes, from disaster relief to diversity & inclusion initiatives to educational opportunities. Each participating charity was able to receive a match of up to 125,000 miles, and the match continued until the five-million-mile threshold hit.
Participating organizations promoted the campaign on social media and their respective platforms each week, pushing the message “if you’re sitting on a huge balance of MileagePlus miles thanks to canceled trips and want to give back this holiday season, consider donating them to a worthy cause today and if you do, be sure to share on your social channels and tag @thepointsguy and United Airlines with the #MilesOnAMission.”
Brian Kelly, CEO and Founder of The Points Guy, was a featured spokesperson for this campaign and was instrumental in driving awareness to the campaign and all of the amazing organizations it supports.
With United’s match, the 2020 campaign raised over 26 million miles to over 40 different nonprofit organizations.
