Lewis taps frequent fliers for global AIDS campaign

The Globe and Mail, May 17, 2006
by Brent Jang

Like clockwork, hundreds of Canadians let their Aeroplan accounts lapse without ever taking their free plane trips. But Aeroplan Income Fund and global AIDS activist Stephen Lewis will launch an innovative campaign today for charities to recoup reward miles that would otherwise be cancelled.

The participating charities are hoping that many Canadians, weary of writing cheques for the long parade of worthwhile groups seeking money, will happily relinquish their Aeroplan miles. The points have become a valuable currency in their own right since the customer loyalty program was launched in 1984.

Mr. Lewis, the United Nations special envoy for HIV-AIDS in Africa, will be at a news conference today to urge Aeroplan's five million active members to donate some or all of the points they have earned.

To kick off the fundraising effort for charities, Aeroplan and commercial partners such as CIBC Visa and American Express will together donate a total of more than 10 million Aeroplan miles, and they're challenging consumers to donate points to help match the corporate contributions.

The twist to this campaign is that the charities also want to jog the memories of those Aeroplan members whose points are set to expire because they're not-so-frequent fliers.

Instead of having such points go to waste, Mr. Lewis and Aeroplan chief executive officer Rupert Duchesne want Canadians to carefully comb through their piles of paper — including vetting the oft-forgotten accounts of children and seniors — to see whether there are any reward miles collecting dust and in danger of vanishing.

On the wanted list are consumers on the verge of becoming "inactive Aeroplan members" — defined as those who don't earn or redeem miles for three years. Dormant accounts in the Air Canada loyalty program are abruptly closed and all accumulated mileage stripped away. Based on previous patterns at Aeroplan, almost 17 per cent — numbering in the billions — of miles accumulated will never be cashed in for rewards.

Miles are earned through Aeroplan's more than 60 business partners representing at least 100 brands. To keep an account active, it isn't necessary to catch an Air Canada flight. Presenting your Aeroplan card to one of the partners, such as the Esso gasoline chain, will also guard against the cancellation of points.

To make it easy to donate, Aeroplan's website is being revamped to allow the program's members to click and deposit miles directly to one of the charities listed.

So far, the groups taking part in the campaign are the Stephen Lewis Foundation, Engineers Without Borders, Mdecins Sans Frontires, Canadian Executive Service Organization, Schools Without Borders, Veterinarians Without Borders and Air Canada's Kids' Horizons charity.

Aeroplan members will be able to contribute to the umbrella charitable initiative, if they don't select from the list of participants.

Numerous charities find that volunteers with much-needed skills (an engineer helping to build a water well in Africa, for instance) are eager to pitch in for a variety of causes. However, the problem is securing money to send motivated Canadians to far-flung corners of the world. A round-trip flight overseas typically costs 60,000 miles, so the corporate donations to be announced today will transport at least 166 people abroad and back.

The launch of the membership donation program comes on top of an existing "points pooling" project aimed at community charities in Canada. Aeroplan already allows local organizations to compile reward miles from hundreds of individual donors.

In the past, groups have gathered enough points for causes such as sending a New Brunswick daughter to visit her father, a cancer patient in Alberta.