Buying miles & points strategically can represent a great value, especially for first & business class travel. The Avianca LifeMiles program has just launched a promotion on purchased miles, and there’s an exclusive value proposition for OMAAT readers who register. This promotion is only valid for a few days, so if interested, you’ll want to act fast.
In this post:
Promotion on purchased LifeMiles
Through Friday, August 12, 2022, the Avianca LifeMiles program is offering a bonus on purchased miles. While the publicly available promotion offers up to a 145% bonus, OMAAT readers who register can take advantage of a bonus of up to 150%, tiered as follows:
- Buy 1,000-20,000 miles, get a 130% bonus
- Buy 21,000-50,000 miles, get a 140% bonus
- Buy 51,000-200,000 miles, get a 150% 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.
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 500,000 LifeMiles at a cost of $6,600, which is a rate of 1.32 cents per mile.
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 1.32 cents to 1.21 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
Sometimes LifeMiles has promotions where redemption rates are even better than that. 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, and this is a flash sale that won’t be valid for long. While the publicly available offer is for up to a 145% bonus, OMAAT readers who register can receive up to a 150% bonus. With a 150% bonus, you can acquire miles for as little as 1.32 cents each. That’s potentially a great deal, especially when you factor in the credit card rewards, which could lower the real cost even further.
Do you plan on buying LifeMiles with a 150% bonus?
What The ..... It shows up as 2 For 1 or 50% Off ? am I missing something? and same for wife's account?
I did register using your link, but it does NOT show the 150%, only the $145% offer. Strange.
Forget about my previous post: when I click to buy and select the amount, THEN it shows the 150% bonus.
I've bought a number of LM; including a few purchases via OMAAT.
Not sure this time around. I was very successful pre-COVID ticketing a number of non-UA long haul flights in J or F between NA, Europe, and Asia. I have a trip planned for this fall as well as for February 2023; all with flexible dates. While I've found a lot of Y opportunities, even with flexible dates, the J and F opportunities are almost non-existent for LM.
I really like LM and have had positive experiences calling them recently as well. I would buy and use them more often except for the incredibly punitive cancellation fees for long-haul awards.
For example, although for the same SIN-CGK SQ flight, LM charges 15K while KF charges 20K for J class, however, LM doesn't have access to F inventory of SQ most of the time. As well as that Long-haul J on SQ with LM is nearly impossible, while AS does have access to Long-haul J, but charges a ridiculous amount for SQ J service. Maybe the only worth of AS to redeem of SQ is the...
For example, although for the same SIN-CGK SQ flight, LM charges 15K while KF charges 20K for J class, however, LM doesn't have access to F inventory of SQ most of the time. As well as that Long-haul J on SQ with LM is nearly impossible, while AS does have access to Long-haul J, but charges a ridiculous amount for SQ J service. Maybe the only worth of AS to redeem of SQ is the service of SIN-FRA with a stop in JFK, 110K total, 55K per leg is a very good deal if you can land some stopovers.
To answer the question, I don't think I will buy Lifemiles this time. For two reasons:
- I am based in Europe and the euro is far to weak compared to the USD. A the moment, a mile would be almost 1.3euro cent when it should be around 1.1 euro cent.
- Business and first class cabin awards are very very rare at the moment on Lifemiles especially between Europe and Asia/Pacific.
You do a fantastic job with your blog Lucky. Go on like this.
Yeah, the deal is good, but I live in SG, and the only way that LM is worth more than KF is SIN-CGK and SIN-SGN, as I have grown up in China and visited SGN before, I can say, half of Vietnam is literally the same as China so I don't think is worth a visit that much, as well as that unless I am visiting my favourite Physics Teacher who now works in CGK, I don't think there is much to do in CGK.
I think LM is one of those miles that are more intended to purchase than to transfer, while things like KF and AS miles are more intended to transfer, as the rates to transfer from banks,Marriott to KF, AS and LM are the same, while certainly, in terms of per miles, KF and AS miles are worth than LM in everyway