Deals

Buy Avianca Lifemiles with a 165% bonus ( 1.25 cents per mile )

a plane with seats and people in the back

We may receive a commission when you use our links. Monkey Miles is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com and CardRatings. This relationship may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not include all financial companies or all available financial offers. Monkey Miles is also a Senior Advisor to Bilt Rewards. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.


LifeMiles are the ‘secret’ weapon to getting a great deal on many premium cabins

Many people who are points enthusiasts are unaware of Avianca and how to utilize its program to secure business and first class flights at more advantageous redemptions values than other programs. It’s one of my favorite transfer partners. I’ve made great use of the program via transfer, but also via the periodic point sales that they conduct. I would note, Avianca LifeMiles can be a little tricky to book, and their IT is notoriously clunky. With that said…it’s worth the hassle to secure some really great deals.

Lifemiles is a transfer partner of Citi, Cap1 and Amex. Many of these cards are on our top credit card picks

Currently, Avianca is promoting a buy 1, get a 165% bonus sale through Dec 5th, 2023 

The best deal was in September of 2020 when Avianca offered miles with a whopping 200% bonus.

If you want to buy more than 50k, you need to enter “Other” quantity.

a blue rectangle with white text

 

Here’s Avianca’s award chart from North America.

a table with numbers and text

Some great redemption values:

Here’s what things typically look like

North America to Europe:

  • Business Class: 63k
  • First Class: 87k

North America to North Asia:

  • Business Class: 75k
  • First Class: 90k

Europe to South America in First Class

a plane with seats and windows

Avianca is in bankruptcy

This is true, and should be heavily considered. However, as the past has shown, airline loyalty programs typically continue on regardless of the solvency of its associated airline. Avianca did secure a loan to stay in operations although, last I checked, it hadn’t been approved by the courts, so I would again…keep this in mind, but these programs can be sold off and leveraged.

Personally, and mind you I don’t make any money off of the sale of these miles, I don’t think you have a ton to worry about in terms of the miles being zeroed out completely. Worst case, the program could be spun off like Aeroplan to generate cash, or a bank could even purchase the program, etc. With that said…always heed caution.

Should you buy Miles?

This is totally up to you. I don’t know your travel plans, what will happen with restrictions, etc. These are things you should heavily consider, but what I can say is this is a very good price for LifeMiles.

You can go here to Buy.

 

Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

a blue credit card with lines and symbols

Learn More

 Affiliate link 

Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card


4.8
4.8/5
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is a great starter card that earns Premium Ultimate Rewards that can be transferred into over a dozen partners many of which are US based including Hyatt, Southwest, United, IHG, and Marriott.

Welcome Offer

60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months

Annual Fee

$95

Points Earned

Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards

  • 3x on dining
    •  including eligible delivery services for takeout
  • 3x on select streaming services
  • 3x on online grocery purchases
    • (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
  • 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel Portal
  • 2x on all other travel
  • $50 Annual Credit on hotel stays purchased via Chase Travel
    • The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
  • 10% Anniversary Bonus
    • Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
  • Chase Sapphire Preferred® continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel Portal and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including primary rental car insurance, purchase protections, etc.
  • Points are transferrable to 13 Ultimate Rewards partners
  • Redeem in the Chase Travel center for 1.25 cents per point
  • No foreign transaction fees
  • Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
    • Primary rental car coverage is my favorite

We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.

Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.

Main Cast: 

Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.

Supporting Cast:

Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on. 

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.

If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex℠and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners

Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.

The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

16 Comments

  • John February 10, 2023

    I just flew Avianca metal business class last night from JFK to Bogota to Buenos Aires. Probably my worst business class flight ever. I guess because of their bankruptcy, they’re charging for everything. Before the plane took off, no champagne, wine or juice was offered. No big deal. I politely asked for water as I was really thirsty. The response was “you’ll have to wait until we’re in the air so we can charge you”. Say what?? They also change business class passengers for meals , other drinks and even a blanket. Talk about nickel and dimeing.

  • Billy Bob February 9, 2023

    47K now to Asia: no warning. These can become much less valuable as you sip your morning coffee.

  • Diony Fuentes August 21, 2022

    I have 100k avianca miles, can use them to book hotels in Thailand?

  • Stephen Brint June 1, 2022

    I find booking is easy. Be flexible in booking LH FC look at various sites, ORD IAD most available

  • Aleks April 13, 2021

    The promo link is broken, please fix. Also would be helpful to know the other price levels other than maximum.

  • Christian September 26, 2020

    Do fuel surcharges apply?

    • Miles September 27, 2020

      Avianca has very low surcharges

  • sinosoul July 18, 2019

    UGH, I only got ANA biz at 85K vs. your ANA F at 90K. Never seem to be able to catch a break on these redemptions.

  • Rob G May 21, 2019

    Are you able to book other travelers (for instance my mother) on an award ticket from your own Lifemiles account?

    • Miles May 21, 2019

      Yep, no problem at all. Lifemiles also recently redid their booking engine and made things much easier

  • Stephan September 6, 2017

    Monkey this piece is pretty poor and actually quite disingenuous because you know as well as others that Lifemiles often blocks LH F among others like Swiss J and CA, so that availability seen on UA or AE websites is often non existent. Some balanced reporting would be nice.

    • Miles September 6, 2017

      Stephan – As I mentioned to Albert the space is there now and it’s bookable. While they could pull space, and have in the past, it’s there for the taking.

  • albert September 6, 2017

    Lufthansa has been blocking F seats to liefmiles for a while. Really a mis leading post.

    • Miles September 6, 2017

      Albert – Wrote this piece yesterday and searched multiple dates. Lifemiles showed same avail as United for Lufthansa F and it was bookable.

    • Tom September 26, 2020

      Award charts are meaningless when availability doesn’t exist. And with Avianca, often availability means nothing when the ability to book doesn’t exist.

      • Miles September 27, 2020

        Avianca certainly has some challenges, but I’ve booked a lot of tickets with them, although sometimes it does require an email submission for booking. What are the issues you’ve faced?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.