Giving Thanks for the Chance to Give Unused Rewards to Causes

This blog post was originally posted on KULA Causes' blog The Currency of Giving on 11/29/12. 

Thanksgiving may be over for another year but the feeling of gratitude, the desire to help others and to give back lives on at KULA and with our partner companies and their customers.

This is evident not in the Thanksgiving Thursday, Black Friday or Cyber Monday shop-a-thons, but in the millions of unused reward points and miles that are being converted by travelers into donations that benefit nonprofits all over the world.

When media has become so fixated on how much North Americans have shelled out during the four-day Thanksgiving period at brick-and-mortar outlets or online, it feels great to be contrarian and focus on how these consumers are using their points or miles to help others. It also feels great to know that we have a developed a very powerful giving engine that creates meaningful brand loyalty by connecting those consumers with the companies and causes they truly care about – all year round.

So while North Americans gave thanks then dashed out to shop last week, we continue to be grateful every day for the travelers who donate their miles and for our partners, like JetBlue and Milepoint that support the more than 2.5 millions causes available through the our CLM™ platform.

And instead of pictures of stampeding shoppers, we’ll close out with images that inspire us to be grateful.