Blood Donor American Red Cross Customer Service

The app is informative, helpful, and easy to use! Moreover, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy and painless it is to donate blood! The rapid pass also helps speed up the process. I wish I would have donated sooner knowing how much it helps so many people. However, I was turned away in my college years due to “small veins” and figured I wasn’t a candidate. I am so glad I went back! I am a nurse, and have worked in many areas. Having worked in Intensive Care, I have seen first hand how much blood is needed and used! This app keeps track of my donations and how often I can donate as well as other helpful tools like; preparing for donation, blood type, and Rapid Pass. I will definitely be doing my part by donating as often as able now that I’ve experienced how easy it is and how much it saves lives! (I’ve had blood draws more painful and timely than this experience!) So grateful I was asked to donate! I hope I can encourage more people to do their part and donate! Thanks for all you do, ARC! ❤️

If you’re looking for a place to give your blood away to people who want it (them wanting it is a VERY important part of the exchange), then this is the app for you!! Not just blood either, but platelets and red blood cells. Honestly, if it runs through your veins, they probably take it, and this app is a great way to locate places with those people in the locations!! So far while using the app, I have had a 100% success rate of going to a place with all of my blood, and leaving with about 90% of my blood, all by design. I highly recommend this app if you want to give away your blood, or the components thereof, to, and I can not stress this enough, people who would like to take that blood from you. Don’t fall for the fake vampire apps again, use this one, they will definitely take your blood!!

This worked well to set up my RapidPass. That was my main goal in using this app. I would like to be able to track what happens to my donation and evidently this only works when one has scheduled one’s appointment through the app. It seems to me that this ought to work for appointments scheduled through the app as well as those scheduled through either a phone call or online through a web browser. My biggest complaint is that the COVID-19 test results are shown as coming from my “latest blood donation.” I would really prefer it if they would give the date of that test so I know it’s from the donation I just made and not potentially from a donation from a couple months ago. When one has just donated blood, I would expect to see the prior COVID-19 test results with a date as well as an indication that the app is waiting for new results from the recent donation. In fact, I would really like it if there was a history of the COVID-19 test results available in the app.

I’ve always had great experiences with giving blood until the last couple of times. I live and donate blood in the central time zone. The workers of the last two blood drives I have attended traveled from eastern time zone and the automated checkin system is set up for eastern time zone. I show up for my 4 o’clock appointment to give blood and they are closing down and will not allow me to give blood because they said blood drive is over at 5 PM according to EST, even though the blood drive is located in CST. Also, the people that had the beginning appointments sat there for almost an hour, waiting on the workers to show up and get set up. The workers were also frustrated and embarrassed. But the problem obviously has still not been solved as I just gave blood yesterday and the same scenario was occurring again. This seems to be an administration/scheduling issue that I hope gets fixed soon.

Under Donation History, it currently displays blood pressure, hemoglobin, and pulse from the last donation. For people who donate platelets such as myself, I would suggest adding platelet count (the number that is supposed to be 150 or higher) and platelet yield (the percent that is supposed to be around 7 or higher). I have shown up at the donation site to donate platelets a few times, only to be told that my previous count or yield was low and was told that I needed to re-schedule at a later date. I was given those numbers at that time, but I could have avoided wasting the donation sites time (and mine) if I could have checked myself beforehand. Since the number is in the record, it must be in your database, so I am suggesting that it also be added to the display in the app. Thank you.

This is a beautifully designed app with simple controls, fluid responsiveness, and low-user memory load. The app makes scheduling appointments easy and fun, and is the only reason why I donate as often as I do. The only improvement I’d like to see is more access to our health statistics sent to Apple’s Health app. This would add accurate and enriching data to log my health over longer periods of time. I like to think of my blood donations as mini checkups to spot potential health issues down the road, so it’d be amazing to see that data actually logged into the Health app. This data (blood pressure, pulse, hemoglobin, etc) is already displayed minimally when flipping the digital donor card to the history side, but I’d like it to be recorded forever to give me more accurate health data and make my donations even more valuable to me as a donor. Thanks!

18 years ago just a few weeks after I had my last daughter, I began to hemorrhage really badly. When the ambulance arrived , and the EMT’s were assessing my situation, I remember hearing one of them say that I needed a blood transfusion right away. They said that I was in dire need of a blood transfusion to save my life. I praise God and will forever be thankful and grateful that someone chose to donate blood so that it was there when I was the one in need. Donating our Blood, Platelets and Plasma is a very important and honorable thing that each of us can do for others , as well as ourselves. We have no way of knowing that we may very well end up being the one that needs a blood transfusion at some point in our lives. So if we are physically and medically able, I truly believe that it is our duty to donate blood products that can and does help save peoples lives.

Really appreciate the Rapid Pass to speed the process! Enhancement opportunities. Smart scheduling feature should auto suggest the date 8 weeks after the last scheduled appointment, if it’s within the 8 week window, otherwise use today or next 14 days, or the next day of the week from previous appt. Also, after my donation today (in Nov), I tried to schedule my next one, but the app would not allow scheduling past Dec, it kept going back to today’s date. I finally realized I had to flip to next year (I’m scheduling a Jan appt 8 weeks from now). Recommend updating the UX to make it easier (such as auto update the year when scrolling past Dec, or an alternate date picker like a calendar view). An updated smart scheduling feature, above, should also reduce issues like this since the system would auto select.

As a Cascades Region ‘ambassador”, that is, the front-line identification verifier, for blood donors—the app is much more reliable with the baked-in “Donor Card” feature than other forms of identification which all need to be ‘scanned’. The bonus feature for blood donation pre-check is the app’s capabilities to prompt the donor to complete the “RapidPass” to expedite the FDA-required ‘health survey—which keeps the nation’s blood supply safe and effective. There are several other informational features, that are useful, but in this era of budget cuts the app is a useful tool to enable Phlebotomists to manage their increasing workloads with as little friction as possible from the check-in desk process by allowing donors a DIY (Do It Yourself) capability.

The reschedule appointment doesn’t really work. You can cancel your appointment, but it doesn’t let you reschedule for a different day. The badges are sort of meaningless. 10+ gallons doesn’t really tell you much. I’d rather know the amount of gallons. Team standings are okay, but I liked the individual standings better. The team standings show you that are a drop in the bucket and that you are making a difference, but the individual standings show how much of a difference that you, as a drop in the bucket, are making. The individual standings are far more helpful in trying to recruit other people to donate because it shows how big of a difference ONE PERSON can make. And it can be a pretty big difference.

I really enjoy the aesthetics and utility of the app, but I wish my blood pressure data, iron concentration, hemoglobin, pulse, etc. were integrated into Apple HealthKit automatically. Also, the badges aren’t very interesting. The only ones I pay attention to represent the total volume donated. If there aren’t cooler badges imaginable, it might be better just to remove the badges entirely (which take up a TON of real estate in the app) and just track volume milestones. Also, the layout of the app doesn’t make much sense. Why, for instance, does the profile page contain “start rapidpass”, but your team is selected on a different page? And why is there a “me” tab within impact when there’s already a profile tab? It seems a better way to organize the app would be with a Profile tab (which contains your history and health data, your blood journey, your team’s rank, your milestones/badges, and your donor card), and then a Book Donation tab (which has RapidPass, the date your next eligible to donate, suggested donation options, etc. One more thing, the notification settings it says I have are wrong. I messaged STOP when I was getting SMS’s from the Red Cross, but the app said that I had sms notifications turned on.

This app is great! I can keep up with appointments, make appointments, cancel them, tells the blood type, anything special, the number and history of donations, literally everything about my blood donation! The best feature is getting the rapid pass done before arriving for my appointment saving time. My only complaint is when navigating the app it is extremely frustrating that 90% of the pages do not have a back button, previous page button or home button!!! So then you are stuck on what ever page forcing you to either exit the app and wait for it to reset Or delete it and start all over again. Please, add a home, back our previous page button to ALL pages. (This is the only reason I rated it a 4 -otherwise it would be a 5).

I was disappointed with the EZ pass(I don’t remember the exact name of it, but it is the pre-donation survey questionnaire in the app). I had to restart the survey three times due to it stalling while I was taking the survey and would not recover. It was frustrating and time-consuming. For your general information, I was at home on a strong Wi-Fi at approximately six in the morning, so it could not have been busy. There was some glitch that was causing the issue. It would be worth it to your donors to not have to go through that each time, that was the only issue I had. I enjoyed donating, and considerate my privilege and will continue to do so, but I thought it was important to communicate this. Thank you for your consideration.

Where do I begin? This app is awesome I can see what my bp, hemoglobin, pulse, etc all from the day I donated. I thought it would hurt but it didn’t hurt at all. Trust me I’m not a fan on needles but I loved how kind everyone was and I just kept thinking I could be saving a life or more. I also like that I can see my blood type, how much I donated, I can join a “team”, schedule another appointment, and I absolutely love seeing where the blood is donated. Normally I hate notifications from other apps but I love getting to see the notifications. I find all of the notifications interesting. I recommend donating blood and if you ever think about wanting to do it and if you don’t like it once that’s ok at least you got to the experience!

The American Red Cross has put together an excellent app that allows you to schedule a blood donation appointment, check your eligibility and review your history of donation. Everything you need to know about eligibility and donation is provided on the app. In addition, for a limited time, they are testing for COVID-19 antibodies and providing your results with your permission on the app. I also love that they show where (for me St Catherine’s Hospital) your blood donation ends up being used. I also appreciate that the app allows you to schedule a donation based on a location, date and time that is convenient for you. If your schedule changes, it is also easy to reschedule your appointment. ARC sends out plenty of reminders too so that you don’t forget. Truly an outstanding app!

I cannot believe this app currently only has 3.6/5 stars. Two things that would be nice to see: 1) please don’t show drives in my smart scheduling results that do not have open slots 2) love the “badges” and “impact” functionality it would also be really cool if the app offered some “donation tips” that would have general facts and FAQs but could also be tailored to users based on their blood type. For example I had an interesting little conversation with the person that was taking my blood last about how it would really impactful for me to be donating platelets due to my blood type. Little interesting facts like that could help guide people to maximize their donations. Keep up the great work!

When this app is functioning, it’s really good. I donate platelets fairly frequently and like to check to see where they were sent to help people. I donate in Liverpool, NY (near Syracuse) and my platelets have gone as far away as South Carolina. Pretty cool. Trying to collect badges in the Badges section has been a good motivator, too. My only complaint is that every 12 donations or so, I have to delete this app and reinstall it, as it freezes and will NOT start the Rapid Pass Questionnaire when I tap the Start Questionnaire button. I’m going to reinstall it now so I can donate platelets later today - the Rapid Pass is a great time saver - but please, will somebody at ARC do something to fix this problem? Please?

Giving Blood is a Great thing to do because it’s saving lives & helping those in need! This app allows you to know when you’ve donated, when you can donate again, how many times you’ve donated, along with what you donated. As well as locations near you to go to when you can donate again & allows you to see if you’ve had COVID Antibodies to know if you’ve had the Virus or been asymptomatic. It’s a Great app to know the road you’ve traveled in helping others & will let you know where & when your blood was taken too & its journey! It’s great to know that you’ve donated blood, but to know when you’ve helped someone & to know where it went to & when is a Great Feeling! Get the App & Donate Today!!!

I started giving blood back when I was 18 when I worked at Mutual of Omaha that was a very long time ago then. Then there was no tracking of how many pints you gave. There was no gift for giving. I was just something you did because you felt it was a good thing to do. Then a few years later, my sister had a horrible accident and she needed blood. Unfortunately, I had given birth and breast feeding so I could not give my blood. But I knew then how important it was to give blood. Today there are incentives your blood they give you point they give you gifts to give you cards they give you T-shirts. There’s no reason not to.

If you are a donor with a smart phone, this app is exactly what you need. As a busy mom who fits in donations on the fly, I can fill out my fast pass while waiting in the car lane to pick up my kids or book an appointment while sitting at dance practice. If you are a science nerd it’s also kinda fun to see where your blood goes. I also like the personal history it keeps so if my doctor asks if I donate or if I am ever asked what my blood type is, the info is there. The buttons are also big enough that my older parents can see the fonts and details on their app as well. Red Cross was very smart with their app development.

I have been donating blood for awhile now. I love having the chance to be able to save someone’s life, and make a difference for other people. The process to donate whole blood is that not long a good 30minutes and that is it, next is Plasma for me. You feel great after, and the Red Cross does a great job making you feel at ease, no pressured into doing things you don’t want to do. The app is great, easy to manage. The only downfall to the app is when you have your appointment the day of, I wish you could be able to see the location of were it is at instead of taking screenshots, I’m not very good with directions. Lol, well worth it!!

Every time I try to use the app to find a local donation center it skips the most recent and more local events. I received an email for a 10/16 in Miamisburg. When I tried to schedule it wanted me to go to the Nov Middletown HS event. I had to manipulate with most recent and found what I wanted. Every time I schedule at this Memory center the address is also initially incorrect. Just odd. Please also stops asking me to go to Hoxworth. It is very inconvenient for me to donate at that site. I don’t want to drive 35 minutes (each direction)to donate. Local options around Mason to Springboro would be great for Lebanon and Monroe residents. Thanks!

I donate blood regularly in memory of my son who passed away. I like a lot of features, esp. scheduling, Rapid Pass, and seeing my blood’s journey. But my last appointment is missing even though I managed it thru the app. I like the selfie feature, but it’s buggy. Several times I’ve tried to post the selfie to FB, but all that appeared is a link to the app download site. I have to take the selfie again (since it’s not saved or accessible in the app), send the pic to myself, and post it as a comment to my original post. This is not the way it should work!

Yesterday, Friday, May 8th. I arrived in the morning to be a “donor” of Platelets and planned to stay in the afternoon to be a “volunteer “. Thank God the public bus trip went well/without complications. The ride from St. Louis Park is long/time consuming and involves a transfer. The Phlebotomists welcomed me, interacted with me, and helped me. The donation time was almost two hours long! The afternoon serving as the “blood donor ambassador “ turned out to be a great opportunity to care/comfort others. Moreover Emerson, one of the professionals at this blood donation location helped me learn how to interact with the tablet so I could say to the donors: “ May we now schedule your next time/day/date to donate?”

Scheduling is easy, if interested you can follow the progress of your blood from giving it all the way till it’s sent to a person in need. Your donor card is easy to find in case you don’t feel like carrying around your physical copy plus you can read over all information and answer the questions they ask on this app so that cuts down wait time when you are there. Over all i am pretty happy with this app, it also keeps track of how much you have given very clearly on the home page which I like.

First off, I LOVE to donate blood, and this is a great app to keep me motivated. It allows you to book appointments, see your donation history, and even earn badges to keep you motivated. The app is very useful. However, it could use more programming to turn a great app to an AMAZING app. First, we need to be able to complete the RapidPass via the app. Second, there needs to be more badges. Third, more connectivity to social media so we can share our pride for giving and hopefully inspire others. And fourth, more interactive tracking of the blood donations. I love knowing where my donation goes! Again, this is a GREAT app already, but wish it had a little more.

The app makes scheduling and Rapid Pass much easier and has been glitch-free in my experience over the past several years. Sometimes there MAY be an appointment available when the app indicates none are but that is due to last minute cancellations which haven’t been entered so I have found it helpful to call my local platelet center to confirm the available appointment status. I have used the app in Maine to schedule and later received a call because the app had scheduled an appointment when none were available. Again, I think this is the lag between the local drive and the app.

My sister lured me into donating blood by telling me the app had badges to earn & that I could track where my blood went. I have donated twice & really enjoyed learning the app as I go. I created a team in honor of my dad & have a few friends & relatives that have joined, which is really fun because we can see our collective impact!! I also love having the health data all in place & being able to complete the rapid pass before my appointments!! A lot of the features only work if you book your appointments thru the app, which is easy to do!!

The app makes scheduling and tracking my appointments so easy and convenient! I like how much information it provides about the different types of donations and where my blood is going. I was so excited to see it update each step of the way, and finally see which hospital my donation was sent to. I know there’s a Facebook group, but I do wish there was a little more community available in-app, though if that’s not its purpose I’m also ok with that. It doesn’t affect how I use the app and how well it performs!

Thank you for developing this app & getting it to be interactive and up to speed. I am hoping the appointments can be connected to the calendar, posting to Facebook and there can be an area to list medications in future application updates. The rapid pass could also ask questions with previous answers in mind. (ie. any changes since last donation? If I answered ‘no’ to questions about the 1980’s- I can never answer ‘yes’. Of course, this will have to change when time travel is invented.). Other than that- I love it and am proud & honored to give with or without an app.

Donating blood is something people can do to really help each other especially in times when things aren’t going well for so many people. The experience was quick and easy and the staff is amazing. They are well trained and you barely even feel it going in. I particularly appreciate how they tell you where your blood has gone and it is really fulfilling when you know that you were able to help save lives. Stop reading this and register to donate now!

This app has been wonderful. The app makes it so easy to find convenient locations and times. As well as being able to schedule in advance. Let’s face it, life can get in the way and we put things off, or it slips our minds and much time can pass . With this app I am able to schedule/cancel/ reschedule and am notified when I am again able to donate. I can answer pre-donation questions for a rapid pass which makes things so much more efficient when ai arrive. The highly recommend for anyone who donates or whi has always wanted to but didn’t know how or where to go

It’s great for saving time by being able to answer all the questions via RapidPass before going to donate. It could be useful for other things but so much about the app seems off or unnecessary. The digital donor card would be great for me to show a history of BP readings. Unfortunately, it shows only the last three readings, and if you have it show the full history, the only information shown is the type of donation, date, and location (full history of BP, pulse, and hemoglobin IS available on the website). Consistency of information would be good here. The Blood Journey is interesting but would be more so with a little more information and if it were more up to date (right now doesn’t have the info from my donation of over 3 months ago). And although I figured out that the Blood Journey is showing the donations in reverse chronological order, why isn’t the full date (showing the year) displayed? Most other informational features are unnecessary once you’ve donated once or twice, and the badges are lame. I’m a Power Red donor so only need to use this three times a year, so instead of bogging down my phone I use it on my iPad. Only got it for the benefit of seeing the Blood Journey, and have been waiting to see some improvements but have yet to be rewarded. I may just forgo the little information I do get about the Blood Journey (only available through the app) and just go back to using RapidPass on the website.

This app functions and keeps track of donation history and help you book appointment, among other things. The reason I bump this down is twofold: 1) while there are recommended blood types listed for two of the styles of donation, it doesn’t explain what each style accomplishes, or what the differences are between them (such as length between donations; which blood type is considered the “universal donor” and thus highly sought after, since this changes from type to type; or what sort of uses the product has. For people who want to donate as many times a year as possible, it is important for us to be able to see how we can maximize the benefits of our product) 2) Limiting searches to certain variables MUST be done one item at a time, and then wait for the list to repopulate. 2a) Related: there is no way to limit searches to days of the week, rather than time of day or location etc. 2b) there is no way to sign up for multiple appointments at one time—the entire searching process has to happen all over again every single time.

What’s great: The profile contains a lot of interesting information. The badges are a great, fun way to get people motivated to give! The app opens and functions really well. You can quickly and easily move from page to page. What’s not so great: Accessing information about all the different types of blood donation, requirements, and general blood donation tips and concerns ARE NOT EASY TO FIND. I was curious what a “Power Red” donation was. My friend looked it up on google, read the answer, and I still had not found it in the app. Finally after tunneling through several pages I found a list outlining the different types of donations. This shouldn’t happen. You should be able to access this information from several points. Maybe where it gives you the date when you can next donate (tap the box that has the name of donation method— you’re taken to an information on method. Perhaps being able to access this information from the badges section of the app would be another way to find it.

I have donated blood and my blood donation isn’t even in the app. I completed the rapid test a few hrs before my appt. it never went through. So when I got the the site I had to re-do it. Why have these features if none of them are going to be filled out or work correctly. My blood donation, appointments, blood type and so on have not been added. I have filled out the section that’s asks if your donations are here and to fill out the information again and it will be updated 24-36 hrs. I did this twice so far. The first time, was 3 days ago. I did it again today. Why ask if the donations are incorrect if the American Red Cross isn’t going to update your information?? I even deleted the app, thinking there was an issue, but, that wasn’t it. We help to save lives because we want too. An app like this can be fun to look at if all the correct info on giving blood is well updated. My husband’s is well filled out, he can see his blood type, when he’s donated, how much he’s donated, and she. His next appt. will be. Me, I have none of that. Hugely disappointed.

This app does not seem to be “heavy.” While other apps take time to load and run because of ads and trackers, this one opens quick and clean. Navigation is pretty intuitive. I have had the app for a while and still cannot fathom why some of the features only work with appointments that are booked on the app. It has my donor number, but somehow cannot sync to the ARC database that keeps track of all my donations. Specifically, the “Where did my Blood Go” story does not work well with appts made on the phone. The other is the team impact feature, which taps into my competitive nature. My team’s impact seems stuck at “700 lives” affected, as if my last several years of donating did not have an impact because I don’t book appointments through the app. Once they fix those items I will rate it 5 stars!

There is always a need for blood donation yet the app doesn’t seem to make the process easy or enticing to use for the person donating. I have used this app for a long time and just got an email saying it is “an award winning app” which made me chuckle because I don’t know how it won any awards. What’s good: -easy access to donor card -easy access for Rapid Pass (when it works) -it sometimes updates for you to track how much you have donated What needs improvement: -none of your health information from the appointment (blood pressure, hemoglobin, COVID test results, etc) are available by date of when you donated to help track your own health info -the badges are lackluster and not enticing -the team element would be awesome if the creator of the team was able to manage the team by inviting friends (and the friends actually able to join), sharing progress of the team, and personalization of the team page -it would be great to be able to get sent a notification through the app saying “you are eligible to donate, tap to schedule” -it would be cool to be able to track and update the progress of your donation, I don’t see why the barcode that’s already been scanned could update the tracking status within the app when it’s moving from step to step -it would be cool if the impact of your donation was updated and also contributed to the team you are in -you always get emails about sign up today and get a gift card/shirt/water bottle/etc, well I sign up and I have yet to get any of the promotional items (I’m not donating to get the things, but if I’m being reminded to sign up with this promo and I do, it would be cool if it actually happened)

I’ve been a blood donor since I was 16, and I’m O-, so I try to donate as frequently as possible. However, I’m also transgender, and something that often keeps me from donating is that I always get misgendered and deadnamed. I’m donating again soon, and I was hoping with the app that I could schedule an appointment to skip the lines. However, there is no place to put a preferred name or pronouns in the app, so I’ll most certainly have an issue with my name when I arrive, as well as having to see it whenever I look at the screen. I’m deleting the app, and until there’s an update that accommodates trans people I won’t be re-downloading it. Please include a spot for preferred name and pronouns (and let them be displayed during appointment check ins), this would make it so much easier for trans people to donate!!

Several of the last few times I have gone to give, it was easy to find the complex or group of buildings or school that the drive was at, but no signs telling you where in that large area to go! I actually had to leave one time because I was tired of walking around building to building trying to find someone who could point me in the right direction. Another time was at a hospital on the third floor or something, but no directions or signs pointing me in the right direction and telling me to go upstairs. That’s a little ridiculous. Too easy to put up signs with arrows — “blood drive this way”! I’m happy to give every time I’m allowed to give and there’s somewhere in my area to go, but must say I’m highly irritated at not knowing where to go once I get there.

It’s been explained to my by Red Cross personnel as all encompassing, however, it falls short in several key areas. Useful for: *my donor card *viewing donation history *viewing upcoming appointment (made online - see below) Not useful for: *Finding nearby drives on certain date range needs more flexibility. *Booking appointments was cumbersome and I gave up (search is clunky, results are limited). I much prefer website functionality. *Badge alerts popped up, however, there isn’t a summary screen where I can view them. I want to see my vampire badge and post it to my social media! It vaporized! Where can I see them? Reps at the drive could not find them either. This could be such a fun, motivating feature if I could see them. *Rapid Pass - I completed it online yet the app didn’t “know” thus prompted me to do it again; there was no synchronization with my account which perplexed me since it “knew” about my appointment... I had to present the email version Rapid Pass. Based on past issues with other Red Cross systems being out of synch, such as phone recruitment within days of a donation, I’m not surprised by the hiccups. However, it does significantly reduce the utility of this app for me and makes it tough to justify the storage space.

Two stars may be a little harsh, but there seems to be a major flaw in the user experience here. When searching for available appointments, there should be an option to “show next available” or “only show available” in the list of locations. As it is, I’m stuck searching through weeks worth of location listings, the vast majority of which show no availability once opened. What’s the sense in listing locations and dates with no availability? Seems as though this app is first and foremost an appointment scheduling tool, and it falls way short in that regard. I’ve been trying for weeks now to set an appointment to donate - just too frustrating to individually sort through endless entries that don’t actually have any availability. On the upside, guess that means lots of people donating these days which can’t be a bad thing!

I use the app to schedule platelet appointments, but it is often glitchy and frustrating to use. This particular time, after choosing a day/time/location for donating, the log-in page wouldn’t load no matter what I tried. So I closed the app and started all over again, only to find that the appointment I was trying to schedule HAD been confirmed — even though I hadn’t “logged in” which was described as a required step. Confusing, but typical. The previous time I tried to schedule a same-day appointment. Three time slots were available, but the app wouldn’t confirm any of them so I called the scheduling department and was told (after a lengthy delay) that the staff didn’t want to stay around for the last two open times. So why were they shown on the app???

I have to say over the years this organization has started treating the blood donors like they are an inconvenience. My employer couldn’t let me leave in time for my appointment. I was 20 minutes late to donate, I had no way to contact them I would be late. When I arrived they turned me away. There was still another hour left for the blood drive, and I’m practically harassed to give blood because I’m a universal donor. What is most frustrating is two donations ago at the same blood drive in Newton I was early, 20 minutes after still waiting for my appointment a man came late and they didn’t turn him away, they took him ahead of me, because “his appointment” was before mine!! There was a time time you didn’t need an appointment. Could be why there is such a big problem with blood shortages. Nobody wants to get done working all day to be treated like that.

I’m a 70 time donor to Red Cross. One of the perplexing things about blood donation is how much time it takes to get ready to donate, then the actual blood draw takes 5 minutes. Rapidpass is a huge improvement, but it relies on ppl telling the truth about travels, sexual activity, etc. Red Cross and the FDA already recognizes this and put blood through intensive lab testing for quality control, so why ask the questions in the first place. Same is true of all the identity monitoring. Why do they need to know one’s name address and birthdate, and repeat it over and over? I finally forced them to stop asking for my SSN which they had insisted they needed. A few bottom lines here: - I don’t trust Red Cross (any more or less than any other outfit) with my info. - ARC should decline to ask for info they don’t need; not having it means they aren’t responsible for safeguarding it. - Given the shortage of blood, ARC and the FDA need to come to grips with the basic notion of how easy it is to not give blood. It’s easier and more convenient to not do it than it is to do it. Given this uphill difficulty to enlist new donors and keep old ones, they need to make it as easy and convenient as possible.

I’ve given blood twice before, I’m a universal donor and enjoy giving blood when I can. However I stopped going as weight requirement seems to change every time I go. I am a 5’3 120lbs female, and I have been relatively this same weight give or take 5 lbs since I was 16 and started donating. However recently, I keep getting turned away for being “underweight” even though the App says the minimum is 110lbs. And it’s not like they turn me away right away, I waited 2 hours to go just to finally get in and have them tell me I’m underweight. Standardise your requirements, and if you’re going to call me about the blood shortage, at least let me give you the blood you’re asking for.

I love the app. It makes it easy for me to book my appointments, complete my rapid pass and have my donor is ready to go. But I wish it would give me the info I need to prepare for a platelet donation. If newbies were looking to see what they need to do to get ready, they would think it was just like a blood donation because that’s the info they give when you click the “how to prepare for your donation”. Definitely needs to be updated with all the info we need. I know it’s easily accessible on the website, but just the sake for convenience, I think providing the correct information would be beneficial to everyone. Otherwise, I highly recommend this app for you to book your appointments and earn some badges for all the good you do in donating.

When searching for an appointment to donate blood, this app asks for date range, time of day and location area. It then searches and returns a list of results. But the results it returns include (or in my case, are exclusively) unavailable days and locations. In other words, when I get search results for a Power Red donation any day over the next 14 days, any time of day, near my location, I tap on each result, and it tells me there are no appointments available for that day and to search again. So what’s the point of searching? Why do search results list unavailable days? If I’m searching for an appointment, why show me all the times that are NOT available? Other than this, as other reviewers have noted, it should be easier to get info on types of donations.

There’s a rewards section? Where? The app has issues. The Red Cross is aware of these issues and are working on them. For most uses, it works. I schedule all my donations on the app. The journey section now works. Rapid pass gives me a few issues, but I remind myself that I’m saving lives with each donation. For the most part, I’m happy with the app. The reason for a 3 rating is: 1. Here in the App Store, this app has a rewards section. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen every section in the app and never seen a rewards section. 2. There are other issues with the app, but I know for a fact the Red Cross is working on them. These are known issues (not requests) and when these issues are fixed, I will change my rating.

I live in a rural area and the app is always suggesting blood drives 50+ miles away when I know (by looking at their website) that there are available appointments about 5 miles away. Yet nothing closer than 50 miles shows up. Moving the map around doesn’t re-search the new area like it should, so you’d really do better finding and scheduling on their website. But this throws out using RapidPass. It’s just pretty buggy and not super useful for the main thing they want you to do. If there’s a massive blood shortage, some of the reason might be that they make scheduling an appointment and tracking/using RapidPass so dang hard.