New App Rewards Green Transportation with Deals

Verge writer Sean O'Kane introduces Miles, an app that allows users to accumulate points for every mile they travel on foot, in public transit, or by car. Points can then be redeemed for discounts at participating companies like Starbucks, Amazon, Target, and Hello Fresh, among others.

Ostensibly, the greener the transportation method, the bigger a multiplier assigned to those miles: one mile traveled in a car nets you one reward mile, for example, while one mile in a ride-share is worth two, a mile of biking is worth five, and one mile of walking or running is worth 10. (One mile of flying is worth just 0.1 miles.)

In order to work, the Miles app continuously logs users' locations—essentially tracking their every move. All that data goes to third-party companies seeking insight into mobility patterns and consumer demand. The company says it looks at aggregate and anonymized data in order to determine "where and when people move, how they got there, and maybe even why they moved in the first place," then uses a "predictive marketing AI platform" to decide which rewards to offer.