EDIT: If you are a member of InsideFlyer (free to join) you get a further 10% bonus miles. Details hereย
Everyone’s favourite South American airline, Avianca, is holding another mileage sale. As usual, you will need to have been a member of Lifemiles prior to them announcing this sale in order to take part.
This promotion runs from 18th November to 18th December and the total miles you can buy within a calendar year has been raised to 375,000 (including bonus miles).
With this promotion you can potentially buy Lifemiles for as low as 1.467 US cents per miles. This is a good value, even though Lifemiles has recently devalued its award chart. A one way ticket from Singapore to San Francisco in business class would cost you 78,000 miles, or ~US$1,144. Remember that Lifemiles does not charge fuel surcharges, so the taxes and surcharges on that ticket will be very low (~$66 USD in this case)
The screenshot below shows how the calculation works. Because I’ve bought a fair bit this year, the maximum I can buy is 100,000 miles with the 115% bonus making it a total of 215,000 miles. That makes my purchase price 1.535 US cents per mile.
The standard caveats about Lifemiles apply
- Don’t purchase speculatively, only buy if you have a definite use in mind
- Lifemiles does not allow mixed cabin bookings
- Cancelling Lifemiles tickets is a pain and costs US$50
- If a routing does not appear on the Lifemiles online booking engine it cannot be mixed
- Lifemiles does not allow you to build in stopovers other than the connections offered in the system
Lifemiles purchasesย count as airline spend for the purpose of credit card bonuses with the DBS Altitude card. They will also count as online spending for the DBS Woman’s World card.
Anyone going to jump on this?
Hi Aaron,
How long is the validity of the Lifemiles ? Can we extend the LM if its expired ?
I plan to tour South America this year and I check using LM is the cheapest way for air ticket inter-country in South America
for example : Sao Paulo – Lima = 465 USD if buy ticket, but using LM is only 12,500 miles –> buy during this promotion can as low as 183 USD .
lifemiles will continue to be valid so long as there is an activity (redemption, accrual etc) in your account in a 24 month period. i dont think you need to worry about lifemile expiry, i think devaluation is a bigger concern.
LM would be a good deal in the case you mentioned
Yes, 2 x JFK-Sin biz cabin tickets booked !
nice- i got myself a ticket to JFK on ANA to watch next year’s US open tennis
Hi Aaron, based on your experience, is it usually possible to redeem the miles for seats on SQ?
hi- yes and no. you will find plenty of SQ award space on short/medium haul routes, eg to Bangkok, perhaps even to Seoul and Perth. This is because SQ has a policy of not releasing its latest cabin products or long haul cabin products (which feature on routes like JFK, SFO, LHR, SYD) to star alliance partners. So if the flight is operated by a 77W or an A380, you are almost certainly not going to find award space via lifemiles. You may be able to get SQ’s last generation business class product (complete lie flat, 1-2-1 config) on routes… Read more »
Hi Aaron,
How would you compare this deal to their last one a few months back? (when we talked last about lifemiles)?
Thanks
hey man- this would be the same, assuming you take advantage of insideflyer’s 10% bonus. last time round there was a 135% bonus, this time round it’s 125% max but the possibility of getting 10% more with insideflyer. so both promotions are the same from that point of view
Hi All, just to share my thoughts on this. I registered and planned to purchase Lifemiles with the bonus. Before purchasing, I checked flight availability for next year. There are no direct flights for SQ + ANA for the planned dates I wanted to travel TYO-SIN and I searched within a 2 weeks range. What came up was a transit in PEK or CAN instead with a mixture of ANA/SQ flights. If I bought Lifemiles, it means I can travel business class at a discounted price on ANA/SQ but I have to compromise on flight timings and unnecessary distance while… Read more »
you’re accumulating miles to retain your airberlin gold or to earn it? (if it’s earning, airberlin offers a status match, in case you didn’t already know that).
i used lifemiles to get SIN-JFK in August next year for the US open tennis. they had quite good availability in business and first for ANA
Thanks for the prompt response. I got my AirBerlin Gold through status match this year and the lounge access is really convenient when travelling on econ class with delayed flights. Hoping to retain the Gold status for lounge access or any alternative ideas?
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