LifeMiles is a popular Colombian frequent flyer program which is part of the Star Alliance network and allows users to buy points throughout the year. They often run bonus sales and right now you can score a 200% bonus on miles purchases which is the highest bonus they have ever offered.
Since LifeMiles is a Star Alliance program, you can then use these miles to book ANY Star Alliance partner as a redemption flight.
Should you buy LifeMiles?
LifeMiles is owned by Avianca, who back in May filed for bankruptcy protection. While it doesn’t look like Avianca or LifeMiles are going anywhere, there’s always a risk considering the current situation. LifeMiles is set up as a separate company and isn’t part of the chapter 11 bankruptcy protection proceedings either. In my personal opinion, I would expect the Colombian government won’t allow Avianca to go under, they recently supplied the company with a sizeable loan, and the airline is essential enough to the country and the region to warrant further support if needed.
Since we can’t really go anywhere, we would be buying miles speculatively which is just as risky. That said, LifeMiles does promise not to devalue its award chart for members who purchase miles until at least January 2021. This means that if you do jump on this promo and LifeMiles DO decide to devalue their award chart; you should be safe.
How to get the 200% bonus
Publicly the 200% bonus offer kicks in from purchases over 101,000 miles (which works out to more than US$3300). If you don’t want to drop such a large chunk of change on buying miles and instead want to make a smaller purchase, you can register your LifeMiles account via the OMAAT exclusive link here. Once you do this, you will be able to buy any number of miles at 200% thanks to Ben’s long-standing relationship with LifeMiles.
LifeMiles Award Sale – 20% Off Star Alliance
Right now you can stack this promo with a redemption discount promotion LifeMiles is running on select routes operated by its Star Alliance partners. You will need to book these flights by September 25th, but you can plan in advance with bookings available up until August 2021.
You can find the eligible routes available under this promo here.
Why you might want to buy
If you have some disposable cash sitting around and you are feeling bullish on 2021 travel, this could all play out in your favour. Speculatively buying miles is usually never a great idea, but a 200% bonus is an insanely good deal. It also happens to con inside with a much stronger Australian dollar, so there’s that as well.
Example Redemption Costs?
This post isn’t focused on LifeMiles sweet spots, however here are a few example redemption costs between Australia and Europe and Australia and the US, please note that these examples are based on the award chart so in practice they may not always be possible to redeem depending on routing rules and available airlines.
- From Australia to Europe in Business: 85,000 miles one-way cost: US$935
- From Australia to Europe in First: 115,000 miles one-way cost: US$1265
- From Australia to the USA in Business: 80,000 miles one-way cost: US$880
- From Australia to the USA in First: 111,000 miles one-way cost: US$1221
Those are pretty attractive prices!
LifeMiles – Summing Up
If you’re already sitting on a massive stash of miles, this promo probably isn’t for you, but if you’ve spent them all on wine purchases earlier this year and are feeling optimistic about Summer 2021, this could be an affordable way to do it in style. The added benefit of using miles is of course that anything you book is refundable and flexible and with plenty of availability, it could be worth the punt.
Unable to find reward seats from US to Sydney for the next 2 months (United). Am I doing anything wrong?
Most likely because inbound flights to Australia are highly restricted. There’s no reason why airlines would make award seats available right now when on certain flights they are only allowed to carry 30 passengers.