LifeMiles Added As Amex Membership Rewards Transfer Partner

Man, this devalues TY points a little, doesn't it?

That is OUTSTANDING news to see Lucky! AMEX truly is ramping up the full court press here with so many of us reaping the benefits. You have to think that sooner or later Chase is going to have to adjust/fix something, be it higher categories or 5/24 or something (we all hope!).

@Stephen. Yes. No reason to earn Citi TYP now. This was the one unique partner that derives value without hassles in redeeming. Thanks Amex!

Very nice. I was tired of paying high fees on other Star Alliance partners like ANA and Aeroplan.

Great addition, especially since I just joined the buy Lifemiles subscription and got approved for the Amex Gold 🙂

Always better to have more choices 🙂

Anyone tried a transfer yet? Just wondering on the time frame from transfer to miles actually showing up/

Is it still possible to buy LifeMiles in ~1.4 cents?

@Chaz and @Stephen I'm not so sure about that. At least with Citi you have greater flexibility to spend your points through the portal at higher value than you would with Amex (unless you have Plat Biz). I still will use the highest-points earning card for whatever the category, now that all 3 major transferables are beginning to lose their differentiation.

This is great, but buying Lifemiles during a promo or subscribing for a plan might make more sense though given that the purchase rate drops to 1.35 to 1.4 cents a mile. Best things about this is that you can buy mixed cabin tickets, which lowers the cost of premium cabins is mixed with economy. I booked JFK to KIX on LH via FRA on economy/business mixed cabins, for only 59k miles + $65 per ticket total.
Also needing just 40% of miles out of total amount for award ticket is great, meaning you can just transfer just the amount you need from your MR.

@Lucky do you know if transferring miles to lifemiles will reset the expiration timer on lifemiles of 1 year? I assume so.

If so, I think this is probably the most useful for that purpose, where We don’t have to buy more lifemiles and I can just deposit 1k into the account and we’ll reset the clock on the 1 year expiration.

excelente @Lucky !!! @lifemiles va camino a ser el mejor programa de viajero frecuente de Star Alliance. Cheers

Wow, this is huge. For the first time in 5 years I now value MR and UR equally...

Hope this doesn't change lifemile promo sales.

When will you be adding United Airlines to your list of options

I also would like to know whether a deposit extends the expiration date of miles in my account. I over-purchased or underused miles for my recent trip and have about 9800 left in the account that will expire next year.

That doesn‘t works for the german amex platinum. Thats shit.

Huge addition for myself. This was the only reason for my to earn TY points. I can now focus on UR and MR once again. Only issue with LifeMiles is they often have issues booking Copa flights, hopefully that's something they will resolve.

I have emailed LM inquiring about the expiration extension with MR. The web page that explains expiration is here: https://www.lifemiles.com/eng/tra/pro/proofenot.aspx?D=TTN582

In any case, a safe method is to use their cheapest monthly accrual plan that basically gives you 8000 miles for $120 spread over a year (1.5 cpm).

If your balance is already zero, then you just need to transfer miles for the next trip.

All things considered I'd still prefer to send 55,000 MR over to aeroplan instead of 63,000 to LM for US - Europe (as long as it's for LX at low fees, have one of those coming up in three weeks). Eagerly waiting for a Thanksgiving LM sales with added OMT bonus!!!

I don't see why this should take away from the value of TY points. They are still able to be used for the same amount of travel, no matter who else Avianca decides to sell miles to. If anything, I appreciate the ability to use both TY and MR points for Lifemiles awards. I DO think the rumored disappearance of the 1.25c/pt for airfare on TY points devalues them a bit. 1c/pt is a terrible value compared to transferring to lifemiles, krisflyer, or virgin atlantic club.

Please note that the excitement is only around Amex US issued cards which is probably only a fraction of the Amex cards issued world wide.

I just booked a lifemiles ticket from Africa to US on SWISS for 77k mikes. Bargain. Wasn’t showing up on United or Aeroplan.

I can confirm that the transfers are NOT instant. A number of the other articles mentioned that they are supposed to be, but I tried transferring last night and I'm still waiting for the points to show up. The confirmation page on Amex said "Transfers are usually instant, but could take up to 48 hours."

I contacted Amex via chat and was told that transfers take "up to 48 hours".

@Andrew please report back on transfer times

The miles were deposited in my account by this morning, so it was ~30-36 hours for me.

Update on this - i just transferred from Amex, and the points transferred immediately. Seems that they have corrected whatever IT glitch was causing the delays.