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If you like getting great deals on Star Alliance business and first class flights, you should pay attention to Avianca Lifemiles. They have incredibly competitive redemption rates to Europe and Asia on airlines like Swiss, Lufthansa, ANA, Asiana, etc – not to mention they also offer great US domestic pricing on shorter distance flights operated by United. They’re currently offering a 125% bonus on purchased points ( 140% if you use OMAAT special link ), which knocks the price of a business class flight to Europe under $1k. Very solid deal. However, when it comes time to book, you may run into some problems if you aren’t using a browser that is compatible with their website.
Apparently Lifemiles works best on PCs
I typically use Google Chrome and in the past I’ve just dealt with their website improperly translating to English. I haven’t run into any serious problems until recently, when I purchased some Lifemiles. The purchase of points went swimmingly well, but actually booking the tickets afterwards was problematic. I haven’t run into in this problem in the past, and phoned into Lifemiles to problem shoot. The rep informed me that their site works best on non-Macs, and is best suited to run on Internet Explorer.
uh oh…I use a Mac
I thought I may end up having to pay some phone booking fees if I couldn’t get them to process online. However, I found when I changed to Firefox, I had absolutely no problems whatsoever booking and navigating the site was far better. All translations were fluid and even the overall layout was far clearer.
Have you run into any similar problems?
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 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℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2027.
- $95 Annual Fee
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.
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