Do You Want to Go Home For The Holidays?

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12/8/13 UPDATE: The comments are now closed – We are now starting the process of going through every submission and determining who will get the tickets home for the holidays. The exposure on what we were trying to do has been beyond amazing, and we’re incredibly thankful to everyone who volunteered their time, donated miles, products, and services. A true “thank you” section will be included with the winners page, and we’re hoping to post that tomorrow. Again, thank you. -Peter and Meagan

12/6/13 UPDATE: PLEASE READ!! Welcome to all who have found this page from Yahoo and Good Morning America! To enter the contest, READ THIS ENTIRE PAGE, then enter your request in the COMMENTS SECTION BELOW. Please don’t email us! Meagan and I are just two people, and we’ve had over 600 ermails in the past 20 minutes alone! Just post your comment below – IT WILL BE SEEN – We promise!! Thanks again for coming, and we home we can help you get to go home for the holidays this year! -Peter Shankman and Meagan Walker

12/5/13 UPDATE: We’re extending the deadline on sending you home for the holidays! Due to a flurry of media coverage, Meagan and I have decided to extend the deadline for people to submit their stories to tell us why we should send them home for the holidays! We’ll keep the page open until Sunday night, and announce winners Monday evening. We’re so amazed by the number of people who have stepped up to donate their miles (we’re hoping to bring the amount of trips up to 30!) and companies that have donated product – It’s truly a wonderful outpouring of kindness and good. So please – If you know anyone who deserves to go home to see their families for the holiday but can’t afford it, share this link with them – Let’s see if we can’t get even more people home! And if you’d like to donate anything – Miles, cash to defray the taxes and fees of the flights, anything – Let us know! As always, love and gratitude to you all. We’re all doing a really, really good thing here. Please click “share” below and pass on the love! 🙂 PS: If you’re commenting, make sure to add where you’re coming from, and where you want to go!

12/4/13 UPDATE 2: (6:24pm ET) Groundlink, the car service whose app I live by when I’m traveling and find myself in a city without a decent public transit system, has graciously given 10 of our winners rides either to or from the airport – Up to a hundred bucks worth per person! You know that’s gonna help some of our winners out who land and are like, “OK, now what do I do?” Thanks, Grounlink! Also, thanks to Business Insider and the SAP Business Innovation Blog for the great coverage! I’ve been contacted by some additional media as well, stay tuned! As always, than you all for your support – Special shout-outs to two special people who wrote in and asked to donate a few dollars to help underwrite some of the taxes and fees associated with all of these trips. There’s so much goodness and love in the world, it’s truly wonderful. Keep sharing, keep posting, and keep spreading the good karma! 

12/4/13 UPDATE: We’re closing in on TWENTY-FIVE TRIPS HOME!!! Mad Huge Props to JetBlue for coming in with no less than ten flights for people who live where they fly. Thank you!! Also big thanks to ScotteVest, who is giving a Puffer Jacket to every winner. I can’t BELIEVE how this is growing! Want to help? Donate product? Donate cash to cover traveling people’s expenses? Anything? Let me know – I’d love to include you! – Just email me – peter at shankman dot com. Let’s keep the love going! PS: Know any media? Let them know about this – Perhaps we can really blow it up and give trips to EVERYONE who has left a comment below.

12/3/13 UPDATE: Thanks to the generosity of countless people, I’m now able to send home EIGHT NINE!! PEOPLE!! This is truly awesome. Additionally, TripIt has been kind enough to extend three-month TripIt Pro subscriptions to all the winners! Please continue to share this post for those who might not know about it, and could possibly use some help getting home this holiday season. Thank you! 🙂

As is well known, I do a ton of travel for work each year. This year saw eight international trips, including the middle east, three to Asia, and several Europes. And that was only International. Domestic, it seemed like I was on a plane virtually three times a week this year. What does all that mean, other than me never getting a good night’s sleep? Well, I get a TON of miles.

Thanks to the ridiculous amount of travel I do per year, I was able to send four people home last year who deserved to be with their families for the holidays, but couldn’t afford to do so.

It was so gratifying to me to be able to do it, that I want to do it again. So I’m going to!

Welcome to the 2013 edition of “Do You Want To Go Home for the Holidays?”

My goal this year was to get my favorite airline, United, involved and have them match the miles, but sadly, they were unable to get the needed approvals in time, so we can’t send as many people home as I wanted, but hey, four SIX! (Thank you, Mindy for donating two more tickets!!) people home for the holidays is still better than none! (By the way – Have extra United miles and want to send people home like I’m doing? Get in touch with me – peter at shankman dot com – let’s work together to do it!)

So here we go:

Do you live in the US and far from your family or friends? Are you bummed you can’t get home to see them this holiday season because you can’t afford the flights?

I’m going to give away some of my airline miles I earned this year to fund six round-trip flights for SIX individual people, starting and ending anywhere in the continental US, to the commenter who best tells me below why they want the trip.

That’s it. And I won’t even be the judge. My life-saving assistant Meagan Walker will. And she’ll do it by Friday, December 6th, at 5pm. We’ll announce the four winners Saturday, December 7th, at 10am, on this blog, my Facebook page, and my Twitter account.

That’s it. No strings attached. Just leave a comment below about where you want to go, who you want to visit, and why. Family in LA and you’re broke in NYC? Sister in Miami as you live in Montana? Brother and nephew in Chicago while you work in Vegas? Tell Meagan your story below.

Meagan will pick six people on Friday, and we’ll handle the logistics on Saturday, since flights for the holidays are filling up fast. We have to say this: If you don’t get back to us by 10am EST Sunday morning the 8th, we’ll have to choose someone else, because miles flights, especially for the holidays, are super-limited. So be sure to follow and subscribe, at least until Tuesday morning. I should also say that I’m simply giving six trips to six people who follow or subscribe to me, or are my online friends. I’m not selling anything, no money is changing hands, there’s nothing against my airline’s frequent flier rules here, as far as I know. If someone from my favorite airline contacts me and tells me there is, I’ll have to immediately cease my idea.

I’m psyched about being able to do this – I’m happy that my lifestyle can wind up helping people. Finally, please share this post with your friends! If you don’t need the miles, perhaps you know someone who knows someone who does!

Happy holidays! 🙂

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