Miles donations are providing flights for Afghan refugees

A campaign that began with ordinary people donating frequent-flyer miles has raised enough in two months to provide 40,000 flights for refugees from Afghanistan, and organizers and the White House are looking to nearly double that figure.

About 3,200 flights with donated miles have already carried Afghans from temporary housing at U.S. military bases to new homes around the United States, according to organizers.

Corporations have made half of the contributions so far, mostly in tickets donated by airlines, including ones that ferried refugees from bases overseas to the U.S. under contracts with the federal government.

The campaign was started by Miles4Migrants, a group that was founded in 2016 and uses donated miles and credit card points to help refugees. The group saw support for refugees fleeing Afghanistan in August, as the U.S. military withdrew and turned the country over to the Taliban, and began talking to other nonprofits about helping.

“Government resources are limited, and we knew that the American people wanted to support Afghans who were arriving and help them find safe homes,” said the group’s co-founder, Andy Freedman. “That’s when we turned to the airlines.”

United Airlines has contributed 7,000 flights and American Airlines donated 6,000. Smaller contributions have come in from Delta, JetBlue, Alaska, Frontier, Air Canada, aircraft maker Boeing and the Tripadvisor Charitable Foundation, organizers say.

Individuals have donated enough miles and credit card points to cover 20,000 flights, according to Miles4Migrants and Welcome.US, a new not-for-profit coalition that is trying to generate private-sector support for arriving Afghans.

“It is incredibly inspiring to see the American people and American companies coming together to welcome our new Afghan...