Best Uses of Avianca LifeMiles

Avianca LifeMiles is one of our favorite airline programs because of its combination of unique sweet spots, the ability to manipulate awards to pay fewer miles than the rates listed on the published award chart and the fact that it doesn’t add fuel surcharges.

Last week, LifeMiles devalued first and business class awards to Europe, as well as first class awards to Asia. Despite that, there are still some significant value to be had within the program.

The purpose of this post is to provide an overview of the strengths of Avianca LifeMiles and also to serve as a reference when considering travel partners of the major transferable currencies.

Best ways to collect LifeMiles

Credit Cards

One of the easiest and quickest way to earn LifeMiles is through credit card welcome offers. Below are the current cards that earn LifeMiles directly:

Card Offer and Details
avianca lifemiles American Express® Elite Card ⓘ $626 1st Yr Value Estimate Up to 100K miles ⓘ Non-Affiliate Up to 100K miles: Earn 60K bonus miles after $4.5K spend in first 90 days + 40K miles after $25K total spend in first 12 months$249 Annual Fee Information about this card has been collected independently by Frequent Miler. The issuer did not provide the details, nor is it responsible for their accuracy. FM Mini Review: If you were already interested in a LifeMiles+ subscription, this card might be appealing since it only costs $9 more than the cost of 12 months of the "Lite" subscription (or you can enjoy the same annual $240 in value toward higher subscription levels with a $20 monthly discount). It could be worth getting the card for the Silver Elite benefits if you would have considered buying a LifeMiles+ subscription anyway. However, for ongoing spend, it is less compelling given the fact that many transferable currency cards offer superior return on spend. Earning rate: 3X Avianca purchases ✦ 2X dining and other travel ✦ 1X everywhere else Base: 1X (1.3%) Travel: 2X (2.6%) Dine: 2X (2.6%) Brand: 3X (3.9%) Card Info: American Express issued by FEB. This card has no foreign currency conversion fees. Big spend bonus: Earn double miles on up to 1,000 miles per month with the included "Lite" subscription. Noteworthy perks: Complimentary Avianca Silver elite status ➥More
avianca lifemiles American Express® Card ⓘ $370 1st Yr Value Estimate 40K miles ⓘ Non-Affiliate Earn 40K bonus miles after $3K in first 90 days$99 Annual Fee Information about this card has been collected independently by Frequent Miler. The issuer did not provide the details, nor is it responsible for their accuracy. FM Mini Review: This card could be worthwhile for those who fly Avianca enough to take advantage of Silver Elite benefits but not enough to earn that status. However, it isn't a great way to earn Avianca Lifemiles long-term. Earning rate: 2x Avianca purchases, dining, and grocery ✦ 1x everywhere else Base: 1X (1.3%) Dine: 2X (2.6%) Grocery: 2X (2.6%) Brand: 2X (2.6%) Card Info: American Express issued by FEB. This card has no foreign currency conversion fees. Noteworthy perks: Complimentary Avianca Silver elite status ➥More

Transfer points

Avianca LifeMiles is a partner with many transferable points programs, which can be an easy way to accumulate miles. Standard transfer ratios are as follows:

Buy points on sale

LifeMiles offers frequent sales on points. We will list any current offers in this post. When on sale, LifeMiles typically offers miles for somewhere between 1.2 – 1.4 cents each. Buying miles can sometimes be useful when obtaining them for high value awards.

Three ways to pay less for Avianca LifeMiles awards

Avianca LifeMiles is a very “hackable” program in the sense that there are a multitude of ways to pay less than the official award chart rates. There are generally three ways to save on LifeMiles awards: award ticket sales, award pricing anomalies, and mixed-cabin awards.

LifeMiles award pricing anomalies

Avianca inexplicably prices certain flights well below their listed award chart rates. We’ve written a number of posts about this phenomenon, including:

• The secret LifeMiles award chart
• Does LifeMiles play favorites?
• Cracking the LifeMiles secret code

For reasons that aren’t clear, these anomalies pop up in various regions and routes. In many cases, the reduced pricing has stuck around for years and makes for good sweet spots on select routes. You never know when you might stumble on one of these strange sweet spots that may fit your needs.

LifeMiles+ subscription

LifeMiles+ is a new subscription offering from Avianca LifeMiles. All subscription levels include a 10% rebate on all of your LifeMiles award redemptions. This includes Star Alliance awards as well as awards on other partner airlines. These miles are added to your account within 15 days of redemption.

There are four different subscription levels. The “lite” version is complimentary for cardholders of the LifeMiles Elite Amex card, while the Basic, Pro, and Max subscription levels include free award changes and cancellations.

Details and pricing are as follows:

Award ticket sales

LifeMiles occasionally puts flights to select regions on sale for reduced-rate award tickets. This most commonly happens for awards to Asia or South America, though it’s possible that they may offer sales to other regions as well. It’s worth keeping your eye out for emails from LifeMiles and/or subscribing to your favorite blogs to be alerted when a region is on sale.

Using mixed-cabin awards for lower prices

Perhaps the best tip for the lowering the price of an Avianca LifeMiles award to use mixed-cabin awards, which is when a portion of the itinerary is in business and the rest is in economy.

LifeMiles prices mixed-cabin awards based on a rough percentage of the distance traveled in each cabin. In other words, if you book a trip that is 10,000 miles in total distance and you will travel 4,000 miles of it in economy class and 6,000 miles of it in business class, Avianca will charge roughly 40% of the economy class price for that itinerary and 60% of the business class price (there are some other variables as well and the price doesn’t break down exactly according to these percentages). This can create some great opportunities in the right situation.

For example, flying from Paris to Washington D.C. should ordinarily cost 70,000 LifeMiles in business class. However, if you add on an economy class flight to your itinerary – such as Houston in the example below – the total cost will reduce, despite you flying farther. In this example, the Paris to Washington D.C. portion in business class prices out at 53,320 LifeMiles, with the D.C. to Houston leg costing 8,820 miles for a total cost of 62,140 miles.

That represents a savings of 7,860 miles — over 10% less than the cost of Paris to DC alone. If you only wanted to travel to Washington, you could conceivably get off the plane there, not take the connecting flights and save some miles.

Be aware that there are some potential issues. First, if there are irregular operations, you may end up rebooked on a route that doesn’t connect at Dulles. If your bags get misplaced and don’t show up when you do (you’ll need to collect them and pass through customs at your first point of entry to the US), United is probably going to try to deliver them to you in Houston.

Additionally, Airlines don’t like people taking advantage of this type of ticketing loophole on paid tickets, so it’s possible that United and/or Avianca might get upset if you make a habit of doing this regularly. On the other hand, people miss connecting flights all the time, so if you do this occasionally it may not even be noticed.

Avianca LifeMiles now (usually) charges 90K miles one way in business class from the US to North Asia. Here is an award flight from Seattle to Tokyo in business class:

However, if you instead book Seattle to Singapore and take the same flight above combined with an economy class leg to Singapore, you’ll only pay 58,150 miles one way — a savings of more than 35% over booking the flight from Seattle to Tokyo alone:

Avianca LifeMiles Sweet Spots (Economy Class)

*The rates shown below are generally before considering the previously discussed methods to reduce the price.

Africa in economy from 40K each way

Caribbean in economy for 12.5K one-way

Europe in economy: 20-30K each way (exceptions from 16.5K one-way)

North America from 7.5K in economy (or less on some routes)

South America in economy from 20K/30K or less

Avianca LifeMiles Sweet Spots (Business and First Class)

*The rates shown below are generally before considering the previously discussed methods to reduce the price.

Asia in business class from 85K one-way

Africa in business class for 78K each way or first class for 105K each way

Europe in business class for 70K each way

North America from 10K in business class (or less on some routes)

Oceania for 80K each way in business class

South America in business class from 35K one-way

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