Avianca LifeMiles is one of those programs that doesn’t look much on the outside, but rewards you plenty if you take time to know it better. 🙂 The regular award levels (they killed their own award chart, but the Star partners’ chart is still intact) are hardly generous; the search engine is clunky, the booking process can be tedious; and there are no extras – no stopovers, open jaws, nothing! But LifeMiles has 3 saving graces that can bring you amazing values, at least compared to the major domestic airline programs.
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There are no fuel surcharges.
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There are frequent transfer bonuses from major U.S. credit card programs (currently 25% from Citi valid until Dec 11).
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LifeMiles award sales sometimes coincide with these transfer bonuses, making already great values simply incredible!
I have covered Avianca transfers bonuses and LifeMiles award sales on multiple occasions. Here are my last-year posts when Citi offered an identical transfer bonus. I recommend to read them all to better understand how LifeMiles works and what you can do to make it work better. 🙂
Citi 25% Bonus for Transferring to Avianca LifeMiles Offers Fantastic Values (That Many People Miss)
And the best part is: the current Avianca transfer deal combined with the latest Star Alliance LifeMiles award sale is bigger and better than the ones we’ve seen before.
The current LifeMiles award sale covers Europe, Asia, South America, and the U.S.
The previous sales mostly covered Asia, and they obviously favored the West Coast. This is not the case this time. Here are some examples of what you can get.
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New York to Seoul for 65,000 Citi points in First Class
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New York to Tel Aviv for 48,000 points in Business
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Washington to Beijing for 54,000 points in Business
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Miami to Lima for 21,000 points in Business
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New York to several places in Europe from 41,000 points in Business
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Seattle to Taipei for 50,000 points in Business
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Multiple domestic routes in Economy starting at 4,000 points
Remember that the December 9 deadline only refers to booking. You can fly anytime within their booking window.
How to find your Avianca LifeMiles award sale
First, you need to be signed on. And you can only see this award sale when you’re viewing the Deal Page in Spanish, or at least it’s been my experience (YMMV).
The first offer (“Hasta 43% de descuento”) is the LifeMiles award sale you need
However, when I change languages, I don’t get this offer. I wonder why that is? Any ideas, fellow conspiracy theorists? 🙂
No “Hasta 43%” in the English version…
So, again, your experience may be different, but if you don’t see this particular deal, go to the Spanish version and click the “Hasta de 43%” link. After that, go ahead and change the language — it’ll work fine at this point.
Then scroll down, find the words Review here and click, and you should arrive at this beautiful mess.
This discount table is almost illegible unless you have – I don’t know – a 100-inch monitor, so I extracted all sales that originate in the U.S. airports, removed the stuff you don’t need and translated them into plain English. Some of these discounts are more compelling than others, IMHO, but for the sake of thoroughness, I’m putting all of them here.
You can see the discounts in the parentheses. The final Citi points price after the double-dipping is BOLDED.
Ex.: JFK-ICN in Business Class.
- Regular price 75,000 miles.
- Discount: 10%.
- Price after the discount: 67,500 miles.
- Final price after the Citi transfer and double-dipping is 54,000 Citi points.
Boston
BOS Boston Economy:
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EWR Newark 4500 (6500 -31%) 4K
New York
JFK New York Business Class / First Class (no Economy):
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ICN Seoul 67500 (75000 -10%) 54K / 81000 (90000 -10%) 65K
JFK First (no Business or Economy):
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PEK Beijing 81000 (90000 -10%) 65K
JFK Business: (no First or Economy)
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VIE Vienna 54000 (63000 -14%) 44K
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BUD Budapest 50500 (63000 -20%) 41K
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TLV Tel Aviv 66500 (78000 -15%) 54K
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FRA Frankfurt 50500 (63000 -20%) 41K
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GVA Geneva 52500 (63000 -17%) 42K
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ZRH Zurich 50500 (63000 -20%) 41K
LGA New York Economy:
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ORD Chicago 5000 (7500 -33%) 4K
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CLE Cleveland 5000 (6500 -23%) 4K
EWR Newark Economy:
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ORD Chicago 5000 (7500 -33%) 4K
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ATL Atlanta 5000 (7500 -33%) 4K
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BOS Boston 4500 (6500 -31%) 4K
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CLE Cleveland 5000 (6500 -23%) 4K
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DTW Detroit 5000 (6500 -23%) 4K
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PIT Pittsburgh 4500 (6500 -31%) 4K
EWR Newark Economy / Business:
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LHR London 18000 (20000 -10%) 15K / 48000 (60000 -20%) 39K
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TLV Tel Aviv 30000 (42500 -29%) 24K / 55000 (78000 -29%) 44K
Philadelphia
PHL Philadelphia Economy:
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ORD Chicago 5000 (7500 -33%) 4K
Pittsburgh
PIT Pittsburgh Economy:
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EWR Newark 4500 (6500 -31%) 4K
Cleveland
CLE Cleveland Economy:
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EWR Newark 5000 (6500 -23%) 4K
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LGA New York 5000 (6500 -23%) 4K
Detroit
DTW Detroit Economy:
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EWR Newark 5000 (6500 -23%) 4K
Washington, DC
IAD Washington, Dulles Business / First:
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PEK Beijing 67500 (75000 -10%) 54K / 81000 (90000 -10%) 65K
DCA Washington Economy:
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ORD Chicago 5000 (7500 -33%) 4K
Atlanta
ATL Atlanta Economy:
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EWR Newark 5000 (7500 -33%) 4K
Miami
MIA Miami Economy / Business:
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LIM Lima 14000 (20000 -30%) 12K / 26000 (35000 -26%) 21K
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PTY Panamá 10000 (17500 -43%) 8K / 18000 (30000 -40%) 15K
Orlando
MCO Orlando Economy / Business:
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MDE Medellín 14000 (20000 -30%) 12K / 24500 (35000 -30%) 20K
New Orleans
MSY New Orleans
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TGU Tegucigalpa, Honduras 14000 (17500 -20%) 12K / 24000 (30000 -20%) 20K
Chicago
ORD Chicago Business:
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TPE Taipei 64000 (75000 -15%) 52K
ORD Economy:
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IAH Houston 9000 (10000 -10%) 8K
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EWR Newark 5000 (7500 -33%) 4K
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LGA New York 5000 (7500 -33%) 4K
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DCA Washington 5000 (7500 -33%) 4K
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PHL Philadelphia 5000 (7500 -33%) 4K
Houston
IAH Houston Economy:
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ORD Chicago 9000 (10000 -10%) 8K
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SFO San Francisco 10000 (12500 -20%) 8K
IAH Business:
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TPE Taipei 64000 (75000 -15%) 52K
IAH Economy / Business:
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LIM Lima 16000 (20000 -20%) 13K / 30000 (35000 -14%) 24K
Las Vegas
LAS Las Vegas Economy:
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LAX Los Angeles 4500 (6500 -31%) 4K
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SFO San Francisco 4500 (6500 -31%) 4K
LAS Business:
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MDE Medellín 28000 (35000 -20%) 23K
LAS Economy / Business:
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SJO San Jose, Costa Rica 15000 (17500 -14%) 12K / 31000 (36000 -14%) 25K
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BOG Bogota 18000 (20000 -10%) 15K / 31500 (35000 -10%) 26K
Seattle
SEA Seattle Economy:
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SFO San Francisco 5500 (7500 -27%) 5K
SEA Seattle Economy / Business:
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TPE Taipei 31500 (35000 -10%) 26K / 62500 (75000 -17%) 50K
San Francisco
SFO San Francisco Economy / Business:
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HKG Hong Kong 31500 (35000 -10%) 26K / 64000 (75000 -15%) 52K
SFO San Francisco Economy:
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LAX Los Angeles 5500 (6500 -15%) 5K
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SEA Seattle 5000 (7500 -33%) 4K
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IAH Houston 10000 (12500 -20%) 8K
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LAS Las Vegas 4500 (6500 -31%) 4K
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SAN San Diego 5500 (6500 -15%) 5K
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SNA Orange County (Santa Ana) 5000 (6500 -23%) 4K
SFO San Francisco Business:
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ICN Seoul 56500 (75000 -25%) 46K
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TPE Taipei 64000 (75000 -15%) 52K
Los Angeles
LAX Los Angeles Economy / Business
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HKG Hong Kong 32500 (35000 -7%) 26K / 64000 (75000 -15%) 52K
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TPE Taipei 33000 (35000 -6%) 27K / 67500 (75000 -10%) 54K
LAX Economy / Business / First:
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ICN Seoul 31500 (35000 -10%) 26K / 60000 (75000 -20%) 48K / 72000 (90000 -20%) 58K
LAX Business / First:
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NRT Tokyo, 60000 (75000 -20%) 48K / 72000 (90000 -20%) 58K
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PEK Beijing 64000 (75000 -15%) 52K / 81000 (90000 -10%) 65K
LAX Business:
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PVG Shanghai 64000 (75000 -15%) 52K
LAX Economy:
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SFO San Francisco 5500 (6500 -15%) 5K
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LAS Las Vegas 4500 (6500 -31%) 4K
SNA Orange County (Santa Ana) Economy:
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SFO San Francisco 5000 (6500 -23%) 4K
San Diego
SAN San Diego Economy:
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SFO San Francisco 5500 (6500 -15%) 5K
To recap
You can fly to South America, Europe, Israel and Asia for a fraction of what it would cost you with a U.S. based airline program, and there are no nasty surcharges. In many cases, the mileage savings are so tremendous that you might want to consider positioning yourself to one of the eligible airports even if it means paying cash or extra miles. On the other hand, LifeMiles is quirky and requires some tweaking and persistence to get the best results.
So, this is it. See anything you like? Then check the availability first – which, I admit, can be maddening because for connecting flights, the LifeMiles website doesn’t make available anywhere near all the combinations of Star partners. LifeMiles may require a lot of work to get what you wanted. You could start searching on the United site, then, after you find availability, go back to LifeMiles, search your itinerary segment by segment and when you find something, shoot them an email as outlined in this Flyertalk Wiki. If you consider yourself a travel hacker you might even enjoy the hunt. 🙂
Have you or are you going to take advantage of this double-dipping opportunity?
