LifeMiles Singles Day Sale: Up to 140% bonus on miles purchases

[This promotion may be targeted. Confirm your bonus before purchasing]

LifeMiles is the frequent flyer program of Avianca, a member of Star Alliance. The regular sales held by the program are a great way of picking up discounted First/Business Class tickets for less.

To mark Singles Day, LifeMiles is offering up to 140% bonus miles for purchases made between now and Monday, 12 November at 2pm SGT.

The size of the bonus depends on how many miles you buy:

• Buy 1,000-50,000: 115% bonus, or 1.535 US cents per mile
• Buy 51,000-100,000: 130% bonus, or 1.435 US cents per mile
• Buy 101,000-200,000: 140% bonus, or 1.375 US cents per mile

There is no need to register for this promotion, as you’ll see the sale active once you log into your account and go to the “Buy LifeMiles” section.

What can you do with LifeMiles?

Well, you can’t transfer them to KrisFlyer, I’ll tell you that much.

What you can do is score some pretty lucrative Star Alliance cabin products, like ANA’s excellent First Class or EVA’s also excellent Business. In case you need some ideas of what to do with your LifeMiles, you can check out the award chart here.

Here are a few data points and how much each flight would cost, one-way, at 1.375 US cents per mile. There will be additional airport taxes that differ from country to country, but remember that LifeMiles does not charge fuel surcharges.

• Singapore to North America
  • First- 99,000 (US$1362)
  • Business-78,000 (US$1,073)

• Singapore to Hawaii
  • First- 75,000 (US$1,032)
  • Business- 51,000 (US$702)
• Singapore to Australia
  • First- 60,000 (US$826)
  • Business- 40,000 (US$550)
• Singapore to Europe
  • First- 102,000 (US$1,404)
  • Business- 78,000 (US$1,073)
• Singapore to Japan
  • First-50,000 (US$688)
  • Business- 36,000 (US$495)

Caveats

The usual caveats about LifeMiles apply- you can’t use them to book SQ premium cabin space except on short haul flights (that’s the general rule, for a more specific guide please refer to this article) and you will need to call up the call centre to do any modifications or cancellations. Lufthansa also sometimes blocks First Class award space from LifeMiles.

Your LifeMiles will remain valid so long as you have at least 1 earning activity every 12 months. This is fairly easy to do now that Mileslife allows you to earn LifeMiles– just use the check-in or Mileslife Health feature to credit a handful of miles now and then to your account and you’re golden.

What card should you use to purchase LifeMiles?

LifeMiles transactions are processed directly by Avianca, so they’ll code as airfare spend on your card. You can consider using the following cards to maximize your miles

• BOC Elite Miles World Mastercard- 5.0 mpd, uncapped
• UOB Visa Signature- 4.0 mpd, min S$1K max S$2K foreign currency spending per statement period
• DBS Woman’s World Card- 4.0 mpd, max S$2K per month
• DBS Altitude AMEX/Visa- 3.0 mpd, max S$5K per month
• Standard Chartered Visa Infinite– 3.0 mpd, min S$2K total spending per statement period