Avianca Lifemiles has devalued its program in the most Lifemilesish way possible.
This is going to get complicated, but if you’re a Lifemiles fan and you saw reports from Loyalty Lobby and One Mile at a Time of a devaluation, know that they are right about situations they displayed, but the full story is far more nuanced. The shortest version of the story is that the devaluation is highly variable. As I’ll show momentarily, in some cases it seems to have hit some airport combinations and not others….and in other cases you just need to check a box to find different pricing on the same airport combination depending on which connections you choose! Buckle up — because this is kind of a wild ride.
Business class to Europe now costs 80K miles each way…..sometimes
The biggest hit for many will be the fact that Avianca may appear to now charge 80K miles each way for business class to Europe. On many routes. Sometimes. Confusion incoming.
Before we begin, remember that Avianca LifeMiles just six months ago increased the price of most business class awards to Europe from 63K to 70K miles. In half a year, the price on some routes has now gone from 63,000 miles each way to 80,000 miles each way, a price increase of about 27%.
Painfully, United awards to London, which had just last week still been pricing at 45K miles each way from the east coast, now cost 80K miles each way. Ouch.
The Loyalty Lobby report suggested that Lifemiles was adding surcharges to awards, but thankfully that doesn’t appear to be the case, at least not significantly. The example used in that post was departing Germany, which has higher departure taxes that some other European countries. The total taxes and fees were within $20 of what Air Canada was charging for the same award, which might be some other small fee or an error in calculation/currency conversion. It isn’t what I feared when I saw the suggestion that they were adding surcharges to award tickets and is relatively small compared to some of the incoming craziness.
Still, the increase here hurts.
But it wouldn’t be Lifemiles without a BIG twist
As upset as I am about a no-notice, no-notification devaluation (I’ll take them to task on that in a moment), I’ve been enjoying a good chuckle at my keyboard this morning. That’s because, in a twist that seems very on-brand for Lifemiles, award pricing varies by airport combination…and other things. While some (perhaps many?) business class awards to Europe now cost 80K miles one-way, many others have actually decreased to 69K miles each way. In some cases, similar awards might cost 80K or 69K depending on user input.
While that sounds simple-ish, it isn’t. To illustrate, one needs to build from mild to wild.
A moment ago, I cited this flight from Newark to Warsaw for 80K miles one way in business class.
However, if you depart from JFK, you’ll need to connect but you’ll pay just 69K miles one way in business class.
All of the awards that I’ve searched to Europe from JFK price at 69K miles in business class, though I can’t be certain that all routes to Europe will price the same departing JFK. The reason I can’t be certain can be found in Boston.
Boston to Milan costs 80K miles one way in business class, so one might think that all awards from Beantown have been devalued.
However, Boston to Istanbul priced at 69K miles one way.
Initially, it struck me that price variance by airport of departure or arrival creates all sorts of wonkiness.
For instance, I showed Newark to Warsaw in business class for 80K miles above. If you originate in Atlanta and connect on to that same Newark to Warsaw leg, you’ll pay 63,030 miles to get to Europe in business class (with the Atlanta to Newark leg in economy class).
That might lead you to believe that Atlanta is benefitting from beneficial pricing to Europe, but not all mixed-cabin awards are created equally. Try that move on Atlanta to Washington-Dulles to Frankfurt and the mixed-cabin award will cost you 77,490 miles one way.
Lest you think that it’s the Washington-Dulles to Frankfurt leg somehow destroying more favorable pricing, allow me to present Atlanta to Washington-Dulles to Frankfurt to Helsinki for 67,600 miles almost entirely in business class.
Meanwhile, Atlanta to Frankfurt costs 80K miles.
But adding a leg to Milan — still in business class — drops the price to 69K miles in business class.
An incorrect initial theory leads to a more interesting find
For a hot minute, I developed a theory that Avianca only devalued routes where a Star Alliance carrier flies a nonstop flight. For instance, Ben at One Mile at a Time reported that San Francisco to Auckland had devalued, with economy awards pricing at 55K and business class awards pricing at 100K. Here’s an example of that 55K economy class pricing.
However, starting in Atlanta and connecting to the same flight to Auckland only costs 40K miles one-way in economy class (presumably business class would be 80K if you could find availability).
That led me to think that routes with a nonstop Star Alliance flight (like SFO-AKL) were devalued, whereas routes without a nonstop option (like Atlanta to Auckland) were not devalued.
But that’s not it.
In some cases, you need to check a box for better award pricing!
We started testing my nonstop theory above by looking at routes from Detroit to Europe since there are very few Star Alliance flights to Europe from Detroit. We quickly learned that my theory was wrong — and in the process discovered something far more useful.
Detroit to London appears to price at 80K miles one-way in business class despite the fact that there’s no nonstop Star Alliance flight on that route. But stick with me . . .
Here’s where things get a little crazy in a way that only Lifemiles could.
In the default search results, I see the 80K business class pricing shown above for the itinerary that departs Detroit at 4:45pm and connects to a 7am flight from Frankfurt to London.
However, if you look above the search results, you’ll see check boxes for “Star Alliance”, “Lufthansa”, and “United”. If you check that “Lufthansa” box, you get far more onward connections from Frankfurt to London — and some of those only cost 69K miles in business class!
Check the “Lufthansa” box above and you might get results like this:
That’s wild!
You might think that the above itinerary costs less because the layover in Frankfurt is longer on the cheaper award, but many searches later we found this to be inconsistent. In some cases, a longer connection priced at 80K while a shorter connection found by checking the Lufthansa box was available for 69K miles.
Note that I haven’t found a nonstop flight that prices less when you check the box, but connecting itineraries sometimes do.
This makes searching for awards via Avianca Lifemiles a bit more tedious if you’re not using one of the award search tools.
If you can position to Canada, awards are cheaper
It’s worth noting that our neighbors to the north have things better than we do. I’m not sure if Avianca never devalued awards between Canada and Europe or they reverted to old pricing, but Toronto to Europe rings in at 63K miles in business class on all the routes I checked.
However, starting at the “wrong” US airport, like Denver, and connecting to that same itinerary from Toronto to Frankfurt and onward to Milan costs 80K miles one way.
If you have a Lifemiles+ subscription and you’re willing to play around with mixed-cabin awards and airport combinations, you can still get some very good deals with the main transatlantic leg in business class.
I’m sure that you’ll find the same kind of wonkiness all over the place.
Lifemiles blocking more space?
One Mile at a Time reports that Lifemiles seems to be blocking access to more partner award space. That very much aligns with what I noticed yesterday when I saw the Loyalty Lobby report and started digging into the devaluation. Just as Ben notes in his post, it took me a surprisingly long amount of time to just find examples of business class availability to see the devaluation in action. I was initially using a Seats.aero pro subscription to find business class awards available to other Star Alliance programs and while I could easily find awards through other programs, in many cases I couldn’t find the same awards available via Lifemiles. Using Award Tool or Points Yeah proved more useful, but only if you searched with “all cabins” — searching business class only yielded no results.
I should note that while the Lifemiles website has always been dysfunctional in the amount of partner award space it shows, I had been looking pretty extensively at the Lifemiles site last week while working on plans for a big award trip. I didn’t have nearly as much trouble finding award availability last week, which lends credence to Ben’s theory that they are blocking access to more space.
Keep in mind that you can still stack Lifemiles+ and a transfer bonus
While it is a lukewarm consolation prize at best, keep in mind that it is still possible to stack a couple of methods to get a significantly better deal on award tickets.
The first is by subscribing to Lifemiles+, the subscription plan that offers to sell you miles each month and provides a 10% discount on award redemptions (and free changes and cancellations if you pony up for the second level subscription or higher). At the $20/mo level, you do get the 10% mileage discount but do not get free changes or cancellations.
Still, at $20/mo, which requires a minimum 6-month commitment, you’ll get 10% off, which drops the price of business class awards to Europe to 72K miles each way. That still hurts as compared to the old pricing, and if you had the subscription before the devaluation, it probably isn’t any consolation at all, but it nonetheless means that you can pay a good bit less than sticker price. The savings starts to add up for family travelers.
Furthermore, there is a 15% current point transfer bonus from Amex Membership Rewards. That means you’d have to transfer 63K Membership Rewards points to get the 72K Avianca Lifemiles you would need to book a business class award ticket to/from Europe (based on 80K pricing) if you have a Lifemiles+ subscription. Ultimately, that might make the devaluation sting a bit less for some folks.
On the other hand, I was looking at tickets to London just last week that were 45,000 miles one-way in business class from Newark to London, which dropped to 40,500 miles for me as a Lifemiles+ subscriber. That meant I’d have needed fewer than 36K Membership Rewards points per passenger to book awards last week that will now cost me 63K Membership Rewards points per passenger. That’s a difference of more than 100,000 points one-way for a family of four. Ouch.
Still, if you can find the 69K awards available, you can still stack some great deals.
Furthermore, this no-notice devaluation comes less than two weeks after a compelling transfer bonus from Bilt Rewards. I imagine that some members may have transferred speculatively because of that transfer bonus and now face increased award costs, which is really frustrating. Those members likely wouldn’t have anticipated a second devaluation to come less than six months after the previous devaluation and now likely need more miles for their intended redemptions.
No notice and no notification is such poor form
Unfortunately, no-advance-notice, no-notification devaluations are becoming an industry norm. I hate to see that trend because it seems so disrespectful and unappreciative of a program’s most loyal customers.
To be clear, while I have booked many awards through Avianca Lifemiles, I know that I don’t represent a loyal customer for them. I’m not flying Avianca, nor am I flying other Star Alliance airlines and crediting those flights to Avianca. I can understand that Avianca might not feel like it owes customers like me any notice or notification of changes.
However, I think it’s awfully poor form for airlines to pull the rug out from under those customers who primarily earn miles from engaging directly with the program, whether by flying Avianca and its partners or by purchasing miles. I would be particularly unimpressed with Avianca if I had recently bought a large quantity of miles only for the airline to decrease the value of those miles by another 14% on top of last year’s devaluation.
Avianca could and should do better on that front if they want to continue to entice US-based members to purchase miles and transfer them from credit card programs. The knowledge that prices might increase with no warning — and within just 6 months of the last price increases(!!) — would make me very hesitant to consider purchasing Lifemiles in the future unless I had an immediate near-term redemption in mind.
Bottom line
Avianca Lifemiles has once again devalued its miles, for the second time in less than 6 months. There was no advance warning to members and no notification — it was left for members to discover these price increases on their own. Given that this is the second time we’ve seen Avianca raise the price of awards in the last 6 months, one has to think twice about buying miles from them or transferring speculatively.
All that said, this devaluation is a mixed bag. Many business awards to/from Europe that were ringing in at 70K miles recently now only cost 69K miles one-way — but in order to find them, you might need to check an individual airline box. Of course, they might not exist at all — it’s going to take a bit more trial and error or a good search tool to find and book awards via Avianca Lifemiles.
The post Avianca Lifemiles devalues, but with a huge twist (it’s not all bad news!) appeared first on Frequent Miler. Frequent Miler may receive compensation from CHASE. American Express, Capital One, or other partners.