
Avianca’s LifeMiles are an unusual currency. They can often be purchased cheaply and used for flights on Star Alliance carriers. But they come with at least one noteable restriction: all your flights must be in the same cabin. If a particular cabin is not offered on a give route, that doesn’t matter, you can’t downgrade, you’re just out of luck. In my case that’s a big impediment because United, the only Star Alliance carrier in my city, only flies 1-cabin regional jets to my airport. Therefore, if I wanted to use LifeMiles for an international trip in a premium cabin, I’d have to position myself to another airport first. Also, I’ve read that if you’re trying to book something more than a simple trip and have to call in that the call center is (not surprisingly) mostly Spanish speakers and it can be hard to find someone to help. For these reasons I’ve never gotten into LifeMiles.
Right now Avianca is offering LifeMiles at 2-for-1 pricing. Miles are available in blocks of 1000 miles for $30 USD + taxes. A maximum of 150,000 LifeMiles may be purchased during a calendar year.
This sale is good until September 30, 2014. Beginning October 1st, the cost of purchased LifeMiles will increase. At the same time Avianca announced this price increase, they also announced an award chart devaluation effective for flights on October 15th and beyond. That means it’ll take more LifeMiles on that date than it will today.
Here’s the updated award chart for Star Alliance flights using LifeMiles
If you want to compare the old and new charts, Lucky has provided that in this post
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