Buying miles & points strategically can represent a great value, especially for first & business class travel. The Avianca LifeMiles program has just launched its latest promotion on purchased miles, and there’s an exclusive value proposition for OMAAT readers who register.
Not only that, but there’s a further unique angle to this promotion, which is that you can get a redemption discount if you buy miles with this offer.
In this post:
Promotion on purchased LifeMiles
Through Thursday, September 29, 2022, the Avianca LifeMiles program is offering a bonus on purchased miles. While the publicly available promotion offers up to a 120% bonus, OMAAT readers who register can take advantage of a bonus of up to 125%, tiered as follows:
- Buy 1,000-20,000 miles, get a 105% bonus
- Buy 21,000-50,000 miles, get a 115% bonus
- Buy 51,000-200,000 miles, get a 125% bonus
Again, to take advantage of this exclusive offer you’ll need to first register, and then you should immediately see the improved bonus attached to your account (make sure it’s reflected at the time that you make a purchase). For what it’s worth, I don’t get any sort of kickback from LifeMiles if you buy miles, I’m just happy to be able to give readers (and anyone else who chooses to share the link) access to a better offer.
On the surface that offer might not sound that exciting (we’ve seen bigger bonuses in the past), but there’s a unique angle here. If you buy miles with this offer, you’ll receive 10% of miles back on your next redemption:
- You must redeem between September 21 and October 21, 2022, but you can travel on subsequent dates
- The rebate applies to the first award redemption you book during the promotion period
- The rebate applies to a single redemption, but it could be for multiple travelers, as long as it’s all booked on one record
- The 10% mileage rebate will post within 15 business days of when you make the booking
- You don’t need to have acquired all the miles you redeem during the promo period; for example, you could buy 1,000 miles and then get a rebate based on redeeming 100,000 miles
If you plan to redeem LifeMiles during this promotion period, then it’s absolutely worth buying miles with this offer, even if it’s just 1,000 miles.
How much does it cost to buy LifeMiles?
Ordinarily you can buy Avianca LifeMiles for 3.3 cents each, before any discounts or bonuses. That means that if you purchased 200,000 LifeMiles with this offer pre-bonus, you’d receive a total of 450,000 LifeMiles at a cost of $6,600, which is a rate of 1.47 cents per mile.
We have seen some better offers in the past, but again, the unique angle here is the discount of 10% on redemptions, which creates a strong incentive to buy some number of miles with this offer.
How many LifeMiles can you buy?
LifeMiles lets members purchase up to 200,000 miles per account per calendar year, before factoring in any bonuses.
Which credit card should you buy LifeMiles with?
LifeMiles processes mileage purchases directly, meaning that buying miles with the program qualifies as airfare spending. Therefore you’ll want to consider using one of the following cards for your purchase, since they offer the following bonus points for airline spending:
The Platinum Card® from American Express
American Express® Gold Card
American Express® Green Card
If you pay with The Platinum Card® from American Express (review) then you earn 5x points. I value those points at 1.7 cents each, so to me that’s the equivalent of a further 8.5% return. That means that the real cost of each mile goes down from 1.47 cents to 1.35 cents, which is an even better value (this isn’t cash in your pocket, but rather points in your “pocket” based on my valuation).
Is buying LifeMiles worth it?
For context, Avianca is in the Star Alliance, which means you can redeem LifeMiles on all Star Alliance airlines without any fuel surcharges. Really this is the core value proposition of buying LifeMiles, since this is a great way to book Star Alliance premium cabin seats at a huge discount. To give some examples of one-way award redemption rates with LifeMiles:
- 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
Check out my guide on how to redeem LifeMiles for more ideas.
With a specific use in mind, this LifeMiles promotion can be a great value, whether you’re looking at traveling first class on All Nippon Airways or Lufthansa, or are looking at traveling in business class on a countless number of airlines.
Everyone has to crunch the numbers for themselves and decide whether this makes sense or not.
Do note that in some cases LifeMiles doesn’t have access to the same award availability as Star Alliance partners, for better or worse. Sometimes LifeMiles doesn’t have access to partner awards that other programs do have access to, and other times the inverse is true.
That’s why I always recommend doing some “dummy” award searches before buying miles, so you can get a sense of how award availability lines up with your needs.
How much are LifeMiles worth?
Everyone will value mileage currencies differently, but personally I value LifeMiles at ~1.4 cents each. That’s based on the redemption values on Star Alliance partners, as there’s tons of value to be had. I tend to value miles very conservatively, so if you’re maximizing miles you should be able to get way more value than that.
Do LifeMiles expire?
LifeMiles don’t expire as long as you accrue some miles at least once every 12 months. Any mileage earning activity, including buying miles, will extend the expiration of your miles. However, redeeming miles as such doesn’t extend the expiration of your miles.
How else can you earn LifeMiles?
If you’re looking to earn LifeMiles, the good news is that there are lots of options beyond outright buying them. Specifically, Avianca LifeMiles is partners with several bank currencies, including Amex Membership Rewards, Capital One, and Citi ThankYou, so there are lots of ways to pick up these miles.
Bottom line
LifeMiles is offering a promotion on purchased miles. While the publicly available offer is for up to a 120% bonus, OMAAT readers who register can receive up to a 125% bonus. With a 125% bonus, you can acquire miles for as little as 1.47 cents each.
The further benefit here is that if you buy miles with this promotion, you can score 10% off an upcoming LifeMiles redemption, which could potentially save you a significant number of miles. That’s a reason in and of itself to consider taking advantage of this offer.
Do you plan on buying LifeMiles with a 125% bonus plus 10% redemption rebate?
The best offers are when LM gives a % boost at the same time as a Chase or Amex transfer bonus. Even then, I would need to be actively booking something I know is available on a *A partner - and showing up on the LM site. Otherwise, I would have (even more) orphaned miles suck in this program. Remember, flight changes & cancellations are $150-$200 per ticket via phone only.
nothing worth buying points for
not a good deal to buy large amounts because other promos (as listed) are way better, but if i'm reading correctly, i can buy 1,000 miles @ $33 (and get 2,000) and trigger this promotion. Have a 75k business class ticket coming up, if correct, i should get 7,500 back?
@ mike -- That's correct.
120% bonus is probably the worst promo ever offer
It is definitely historically low for Avianca, but I'm surprised Ben didn't put in the following about the math:
If you redeem the same number of miles you purchase, this works out to a 150% bonus. More if you redeem more, less if you redeem less.
Which puts it pretty average for Avianca offers.
@ pav -- Totally true, but there are different directions you could take here. Conversely, you could buy 1,000 miles for $33, and then get a huge discount on an award booked with your existing miles.
FYI - It says redemption must be between 9/21 and 10/21 for the 10% rebate.
"The miles rebate applies for LifeMiles members who receive this email directly from LifeMiles, have purchased miles in the 2x1 promotion between September 21st and September 29th, 2022 and after receiving this email, redeem air tickets within the dates and conditions herein established.
For all cases, the rebate applies only for the following redemption dates:
Redemption dates: from September...
FYI - It says redemption must be between 9/21 and 10/21 for the 10% rebate.
"The miles rebate applies for LifeMiles members who receive this email directly from LifeMiles, have purchased miles in the 2x1 promotion between September 21st and September 29th, 2022 and after receiving this email, redeem air tickets within the dates and conditions herein established.
For all cases, the rebate applies only for the following redemption dates:
Redemption dates: from September 21st, 2022 to October 21st, 2022
The rebate percentage is 10% for the redemption of air tickets."
Seems the key to getting this rebate is firstly to receive an offer direct from LM. Responding to this blog to buy miles without the LM direct offer is not gonna trigger the 10% rebate.
Don't know whether this is a deliberate attempt by LM to deceive or just their usual complicated and fuzzy thinking.
@ glenn t -- Buying miles through the OMAAT link makes you eligible for the offer. That's specifically what was communicated to me by my contact at LifeMiles.
Didnt avianca 1)go bankrupt 2)announce they were turning into a low cost carrier with buy on board only and 3)randomly put a block on partner redemptions with no warning?
@frrp they actualy are a low cost. They eliminated all business class in America. Leaving that awful service just to/from Europe.
The economy seats are a punishment
Lifemiles are for partner bookings.
@ frrp -- 1) That goes back a couple of years, and things are looking up 2) LifeMiles is all about partner redemptions, I don't really care what Avianca's product is like 3) There have always been discrepancies with availability, which I disclose every time I write about a sale.
The switch to a low cost model definitely does play a role because they may not be part of Star Alliance for much longer. You will get stuck with Lifemiles only redeemable on their terrible product.