A parent in a hospital eight hundred miles away, a funeral across the country, a bedside you cannot miss. When the date is not yours to choose, a private request lets the people who know you help with the flight, the hotel and the meals on the way.
Free to create and free to send.
Some trips are planned for months. This kind gets planned in an afternoon, around a phone call. The flight costs what it costs that week, there is a hotel near the hospital to find, and meals on the road add up before anyone thinks about them.
A request can cover a trip you have already booked or one you have only priced. Either way, say what it is for and attach what you have.
On a Sunday, Lena's father was admitted to the hospital in Boulder. The doctors don't expect him to recover, and she lives eight hundred miles away.
Her request covers a round-trip flight to Boulder and four nights at a hotel near the hospital, with the booking confirmation attached. It went to her sister-in-law, her closest friends and the people from work who had asked how they could help.
Why you need to go, in a sentence or two. The dates, if they are set. And the booking confirmation, or the fares and the hotel you priced, so people can see the flight, the nights and the meals as separate parts.
Travel to a funeral belongs here; the funeral itself has its own guide, funeral costs. Hospital bills go to medical bills. A team's or a class's trip, or a town's event, goes to trips and events, a semester's tuition to education costs, and a honeymoon to a honeymoon fund.
Only people with the link can open it, and the link goes out from you, by text or email. Nobody has to learn about a family's hardest week from a public page.
| What you keep | The entire amount of every contribution. |
| When it arrives | Once your bank is connected, each contribution reaches it in 2-3 business days. |
| How you send it | By text or email, to the people you choose, with photos and a video if you want them to see the situation rather than just read about it. You decide who to send it to. It's never listed on A Better Gift, and it stays out of search results unless you choose to share it publicly. |
What should people see first? The booking confirmation, or the fares and the hotel you priced. The dates and the cost are on it, so the request explains itself.
Can I say why in my own words? Yes: who you are going to see and why it matters, with a video if speaking is easier than writing.
Will they need an account to give? No. Each person pays by card as a guest and is emailed a receipt.
Whose account does it go to? Yours. Stripe verifies who you are, and the payouts from your request go only to you. Once your bank is connected, each contribution reaches it in 2-3 business days, no goal required first, and contributions are still accepted past the goal.
Can I tell them how it went? Record a video update while you are there or once you are home. Everyone who contributed finds it in their email, along with the people you first reached that way.
How big a goal makes sense? Requests start at $500: a goal for the whole trip, the flight, the nights nearby and the meals, shared by the people who would want you there.
Her father was hospitalized out of state, and she needs to get to him. If you are the one helping, raise it for her: the request carries her name so it is clear who is traveling, and the payout comes to you as its creator, so set it up if you are covering the trip, or help her set up her own.
Nothing to create a request. Nothing to send it. And nothing comes out of what people give you: you receive the entire amount.
