Amex Membership Rewards is on a roll when it comes to transfer bonuses. They have a transfer bonus to British Airways, Iberia, and Aer Lingus ending today, then they have a bonus to Marriott, and they also have a bonus to Hawaiian Airlines.
Now they’ve rolled out their latest transfer bonus.
Transfer Amex Points To LifeMiles With 15% Bonus
Through October 31, 2019, the US Amex Membership Rewards program is offering a 15% bonus when you convert points into Avianca LifeMiles. Points ordinarily convert at a 1:1 ratio, though during this promotion you can convert 1,000 Amex points into 1,150 LifeMiles.
There’s no limit to how often you can take advantage of this promotion, and the bonus is hard coded into the transfer ratio, meaning that you can earn the bonus on multiple transactions.
While LifeMiles have long been accessible by outright buying them given all the promotions that the program offers, it’s great to see that within the past couple of years they’ve been added as a transfer partner for Amex, Capital One, and Citi.
LifeMiles was added as an Amex transfer partner in November 2018. We saw a 15% transfer bonus from Amex earlier this year, so this is the second transfer bonus they’ve offered since adding LIfeMiles as a partner.
The Value Of LifeMiles
LifeMiles is a great program for booking Star Alliance award tickets. To give a few examples of one way premium cabin redemption rates:
- US to Europe in business class costs 63,000 miles
- US to Europe in first class costs 87,000 miles
- US to Southeast Asia in business class costs 78,000 miles
- US to North Asia in first class costs 90,000 miles
Redeeming LifeMiles for ANA first class is a great value
Furthermore, LifeMiles offers reasonably priced short-haul redemptions within the US, so they’re not just useful for aspirational redemptions.
The great thing about the LifeMiles program is that they allow one-way award tickets, they don’t impose fuel surcharges, and partner airline awards can be booked directly through their website.
The one consideration is that LifeMiles launched a new website earlier this year that’s supposed to be easier to use, though a lot of people have been having issues with it. So if you do transfer points with a specific use in mind, make sure what you’re looking for is actually bookable.
Redeem your LifeMiles for Thai first class
Bottom Line
It’s great to see a second Amex Membership Rewards transfer bonus to Avianca LifeMiles. Personally I use LifeMiles all the time for premium cabin Star Alliance redemptions, and find the program consistently offers great value, at least when they correctly show award space.
Just recently I booked a business class ticket from New York to Johannesburg to Windhoek in South African Airways business class for just 78,000 miles, which I thought was a great deal.
Just remember that LifeMiles also sells miles directly, often at a reasonable cost, so I know some prefer to save their Amex points for other uses, and just buy miles directly.
Do you plan on converting Amex points into LifeMiles with this bonus?
Ben, can you ask Alaska why they changed the status match to one that requires activity? If you check their website, it now says you have to have certain activity to hold your status beyond the first 3 months (like UA and AA). This would be disappointing if true.
Can you maybe do a post on how beat to redeem LifeMiles? As in not how many miles is needed but how you go about looking and booking an award booking. Their website is atrocious and I have heard the call center isn’t any better. I would just use United’s website but I have heard Avianca doesn’t have access toall availability.