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Amazon Smile Charity

If you buy your travel supplies or anything from Amazon, consider using AmazonSmile to support your favorite charitable organization every time you shop, at no cost to you. When you shop at smile.amazon.com, you’ll find the exact same low prices, vast selection and convenient shopping experience as Amazon.com, with the added bonus that Amazon will donate a portion of the purchase price to your favorite charitable organization. You can choose from nearly one million organizations to support.

There are even charitable organizations that are travel related.

I just thought I would pass this information along in case you weren't aware of it and wanted to support a charity while you shop - at no cost to you.

Note: once you link your Amazon account to a charity, you do have to use the link www.smile.amazon.com for future purchases. I thought I was supporting a charity every time I was making an Amazon purchase; however, I didn't realize I needed to use the smile.amazon link - ugh. Well, at least now I know so my future purchases will support my charity of choice.

Posted by
2527 posts

The service club I belong to participates in this effort. It actually works.

Posted by
630 posts

The service club I belong to participates in this effort. It actually works.

Bruce, that's good to know. :)

Posted by
2393 posts

If you are a United Mileage Plus member there is an app called Mileage Plus X that woks at many retailers including Amazon - you earn 2 miles per dollar on Amazon. You can earn up to 5 miles per dollar.

Posted by
630 posts

If you are a United Mileage Plus member there is an app called Mileage Plus X that woks at many retailers including Amazon - you earn 2 miles per dollar on Amazon. You can earn up to 5 miles per dollar.

Christi, I've been doing this as well. I first began using it when we dined at California Pizza Kitchen. The app charged me 3 times! My credit card company resolved the problem very easily, but I still had to deal with calling them, etc. It now seems to work properly and I've received lots of United points via the app.

Posted by
2261 posts

Okay, not to be a Gloomy Gus or anything, but nothing is free, and any business "giving up" .5% of hard earned profit has to be aware of it and has to make up for it somewhere. The best and most efficient way to give is to give directly to that charity. In the same way that frequent flyer miles are free but are not really free, this program makes the "giver" feel good for donating, but it still has to add to the cost of goods from Amazon. For Amazon it's a means to an end: get people to buy more stuff from them.

Some interesting (imho) reading:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brady-josephson/why-amazon-is-smiling-and_b_4360405.html

https://philanthropy.com/article/Is-It-Immoral-for-Charities-to/152075

Posted by
630 posts

Dave, thanks for the articles. I'll still link to smile.amazon because I know it works - even the small amount the charity gets from me. I'll still support my charity of choice directly, but it's nice to know my shopping will help my charity as well - even if it's a small bit.

I do appreciate the articles though. :)

P.S. I wish we could use emojis to emphasize our emotions. Sometimes I think my words come across as sarcastic, but I don't mean them to be that way.

Posted by
2261 posts

Thanks Pilgrim, none taken! ;-) ;-)

Posted by
2393 posts

Amazon Smile is such a simple thing - just using smile.amazon.com rather than amazon.com and charities get money - pretty simple and seamless for the shopper. .5% of something is something - 0% of something is nothing. Amazon's revenue in 2015 was 107 Billion - even if just 1 Billion were through Amazon Smile that means 5 million to charity.

I do not use Amazon Smile to feel good nor as a substitute for personal giving - it is just an easy way to channel a few more dollars to worthy organizations. I live in area where the closest shopping mall is an hour to an hour and a half away - I shop mainly on Amazon.

Posted by
1068 posts

Interesting articles (thanks for posting) but I will continue to use Amazon Smile. Regarding the weblink to amazon, as I recall they have or send you that as soon as you sign up. I just replaced my Amazon Bookmarks with it.

Posted by
630 posts

Interesting articles (thanks for posting) but I will continue to use
Amazon Smile. Regarding the weblink to amazon, as I recall they have
or send you that as soon as you sign up. I just replaced my Amazon
Bookmarks with it.

I'm sure they did send me the link when I originally signed up. I now have it bookmarked as well and I won't just type "Amazon" to get to the website. :^)