Buying miles & points strategically can represent a great value, especially for first and business class travel. The avianca lifemiles program has just launched its newest promotion on purchased miles (the program has offers more often than not), and it’s the biggest percentage bonus that we’ve seen from the program so far this year.
Note that nowadays lifemiles promotions are generally targeted, so different members may see different offers, and on top of that, some members may not see any offers at all.
I find lifemiles to be one of the more useful frequent flyer programs for redeeming miles, thanks to the ability to redeem for long haul premium cabin Star Alliance awards. However, let me emphasize that the program doesn’t always have access to the same award space as other Star Alliance programs, so you’ll want to do your own research, based on the travel you’re trying to plan.
I’d only consider buying miles with a very specific use in mind. For what it’s worth, I don’t get any sort of kickback if you buy miles — I just want to make OMAAT readers aware of the deals that are available.
In this post:
Promotion on purchased lifemiles
Through Tuesday, November 18, 2025, the avianca lifemiles program is offering a bonus on purchased miles. Different members may be targeted for different offers, though it appears the standard offer is for a bonus of up to 170%. The offer appears to be tiered, as follows:
- Buy 1,000-20,000 miles, receive a 150% bonus
- Buy 21,000-50,000 miles, receive a 160% bonus
- Buy 51,000-200,000 miles, receive a 170% bonus
You’ll of course want to check your account to see what offer you’re targeted for, as it could be different.
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 (pre-bonus) with a 170% bonus, you’d receive a total of 540,000 lifemiles for $6,600, which is a cost of 1.22 cents per mile.
How many lifemiles can you buy?
The lifemiles program 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?
Mileage purchases are processed directly by avianca lifemiles, which means the purchase of miles does qualify as airfare spending. Therefore you’ll want to consider using one of the below cards for your purchase, since you’d earn bonus points for airfare purchases.
American Express Platinum Card®
American Express® Gold Card
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. Check out my guide on how to redeem lifemiles for ideas on how to redeem these miles.
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.
Let me again emphasize 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. Keep in mind that you can get even more value from the program with a lifemiles+ subscription, and lifemiles’ credit cards offer a discount on that.
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?
Miles with the lifemiles program 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
The avianca lifemiles program is offering a promotion on purchased miles. Different members may be eligible for different offers, though it appears that the standard offer is for up to a 170% bonus, which is an opportunity to acquire miles for 1.22 cents each. This has the potential to represent a solid value, though I’d only recommend buying miles with a specific, short term use in mind.
Do you plan on buying lifemiles with a bonus?
I'm not a hard core traveler and I try to keep things basic when using FF miles, especially LifeMiles but I've found them to be useful.
Last year we flew Austrian Air from ORD to VIE. We were originally coming back on Air France (not using Lifemiles) but due to an illness I was able to get 2 tickets on short notice to flew United from MUC-ORD.
All of those tickets were in business...
I'm not a hard core traveler and I try to keep things basic when using FF miles, especially LifeMiles but I've found them to be useful.
Last year we flew Austrian Air from ORD to VIE. We were originally coming back on Air France (not using Lifemiles) but due to an illness I was able to get 2 tickets on short notice to flew United from MUC-ORD.
All of those tickets were in business class and were around 60,000 mile per person one way.
Right now I have 2 business class tickets to MUC in December.
I would expect calling them to be an issue but I seldom have much hope in calling any airline nowadays.
website is down anyway, which seems to happen whenever they launch this kind of deal
So all posts I have read indicate that redemption on other carriers is difficult to downright impossible. Ben seems to be the exception. I wonder why that is...
Would love to take advantage of this. The best use I have for this is flying between the US and Africa. I used to be able to do that on Ethiopian, but for the last few years lifemiles hasn’t allowed me to find ET seats online. I tried calling this weekend, but spent 2 hours on hold before giving up. Before I call again, anyone know if agents are able to book ET over the phone?
Call centre reps rarely (never, based upon my experience and all reading I've done on the subject) have access to more than the public website.
Are Lifemiles points purchases actually processed by Lifemiles/Avianca, and not points.com?
I think I heard that recently Lifemiles have changed things and points purchases are being processed by points.com intead, so just want to double check.
LM dropped points.com long ago.
How about redemption on ANA to Tokyo from either JFK or IAD during Aug/Sept 2026? Good or bad?
It was briefly processed by points.com but now it's back being processed by Avianca.
does it mean 5x points on Amex Plat etc?
With UA pulling most saver business awards this year (and LH/LX having done so earlier) the value proposition for LM has decreased significantly.
Only 160% for me :(
@ hbilbao -- Did you actually try pricing it out? Because my account showed a banner for a 160% bonus, but then when I actually added the miles to my cart, it showed a 170% bonus.
Indeed, but still only got %160. But it's true that banners are usually wrong because, during the last promo, the banner said 160% and I got 165%. No luck this time ;)
tried to price 51k , it gives 86.7k bonus