Lifemiles are on sale again from now till 30 May with a 100% base bonus.
Depending on how much you buy, you enjoy an additional bonus that can be as high as 125%
- 1,000-50,000 LifeMiles, 100% bonus (1.65 cents per mile)*
- 51,000-100,000 LifeMiles, 115% bonus (~1.535 cents per mile)*
- 101,000-200,000 LifeMiles, 125% bonus (~1.467 cents per mile)*
*all prices above in USD
Is this the best deal I’ve ever seen? Nope. in recent memory, Lifemiles have gone at sale with bonuses as high as 140%
- December 2016- 140%
- November 2016- 140%
- September 2016- 140%
- May 2016- 135%
So 1.467 cents per mile isn’t a terrible price to jump in, but if you’re willing to wait there will be better deals. To put things in perspective, a one-way business/first class award ticket to the USA costs 78K/99K miles, so the savings if you wait for a 140% sale would be $72/$91 respectively. Actually, now that I say it aloud, it doesn’t sound like that big a saving.
If you want to buy, login to your Lifemiles account and click on Buy Miles. You’ll see this screen. Click on “other” to enter the amount you want to buy, and you’ll see the summary of the transaction on the RHS.
A few points to remember
- You can buy a maximum of 200,000 LMs a year, before bonus. So, if you haven’t bought any now, you could buy 200,000 LM and get a total of 450,000
- Lifemiles purchases will code as airline purchases (Avianca), so if you use your DBS Altitude card you will earn 3 mpd. Or you could use your DBS Woman’s World/ HSBC Advance, both of which will get 4 mpd.
- Lifemiles cancellation fees have recently increased up to 4X what they were previously. It used to be that you could cancel a Lifemiles ticket for US$50, now it’s as high as US$200 depending on route. This makes booking LM tickets as a precaution more expensive
- Here’s the Lifemiles award chart for your reference
- Lifemiles does not charge fuel surcharges on award tickets
I’m also gonna copy pasta some advice I’ve given in previous articles
You should not be buying Lifemiles if your goal is to fly with SQ. This is because
(1) Lifemiles (and other *A partner programs) does not have access to SQ’s long haul First and Business class space. You will at best be able to book SQ’s regional business class seats on the A330
(2) SQ awards are cheaper to redeem through the Krisflyer program than via Lifemiles
It’s also not a good idea to buy Lifemiles speculatively.
That said, if you’re cognizant of all the potential shortcomings of Lifemiles and have a place in mind to head to, why not give it a shot?
How about buying Lifemiles for SQ J RTW (via *A)? Is it worth it?
lifemiles does not offer RTW awards.
Off my mind.. Annual cap is 200k.. If I buy 101k now.. Next round of promo I’ll suffer as I can only buy 99k..
Another off my mind, can take part in the promo twice? DBS altitude card got 6 miles promo now.. But capped at 5k spending
maybe i’m missing something, but i dont get why the annual cap is an issue for anyone. worse come to worse, start another lifemiles account?
Haha.. I wasn’t thinking out of the box.. Tks Aaron.. Btw, then if I were to buy some miles now and then by end May buy more miles, is it eligible? Don’t seem to see this in the tnc.. Tks bro
yes, you can buy miles as many times as you want during this promo and enjoy the bonus. but since the bonus scales the more miles you buy, wouldn’t it make more sense to buy all at one shot to enjoy larger bonus?
Hi Aaron, by SQ regional flights, do you mean for Asia and SEA?
I’m planning on Japan later half of the year, but I’m not sure if a 7 hour flight needs business class travel ?
So, a bit of historical background is useful here. When sq first launched its new lie flat business class seats in 2006, they were limited only to its 77w + a380 aircraft. SQ being sq then restricted award availability to partner airlines, a restriction that remains till today, even after the 2013 refreshed business class seats launched. However, what happened in the interim was some 772 aircraft got retrofitted with the 2006 flatbed j products, most noticeably those which were deployed to long haul yet less business important places like Rome, Istanbul etc. Some of those aircraft now ply routes… Read more »
Realised I totally missed your qn. 7 hour flight doesn’t “need” business class, just like 13 hour flight doesn’t “need” first class. But still fun 😀
Ahhaha thanks for your replies and info! I’ve looked around Lifemiles and alas, there are no good business class tickets to Tokyo that’s on ANA or SQ. Would ticket availability be better if I had been looking for a year end flight?
And thanks for your site, it’s been immensely helpful as I’m wading through the “earning miles” scene. And it’s been pretty eye opening!
Hi Aaron, how you check which SQ 777-300ER flight routes have the refreshed seats, and which haven’t got it yet? Thanks!
Interesting! My email says 1-50k-10%, 51K-100K-25% and 101k-200K -35% bonus.
Yes! I understand some accounts are targeted for 35% bonus.
Would have bought it if it came a few weeks earlier.. Flying to Tokyo Tmr on economy ticket.. Bought tickets just 2 weeks ago
what good airline to redeem through lifemiles? ANA? or other loyalty airline?
hi Aaron,
i’m considering flying to western europe over the new year period. was trying my luck with london but seems like the only option i got for j class is via turkish airlines. any recommended country to fly to with good j class flights?