Like they often do, Life Miles, the frequent flyer program of Avianca, is having a sale. This time it’s a 2-for-1 deal. For each block of 1000 miles you buy you can get a bonus 1000 miles.
I don’t live in South America. Why would I buy Life Miles?
Avianca is a member of the Star Alliance and their miles can be used on any Star Alliance member airline…with a few restrictions. The biggest restriction, in my view, is that all flights must be in the same cabin. So say you’ve got a nice route mapped out but one flight is on a single-cabin aircraft, like a regional jet. Then you can only use Life Miles to book this route in economy. Even if you’re willing to pay for the whole ticket as a business class flight, you’re out of luck. This really hits home for me as United, the only Star Alliance carrier at my home airport, only flies regional jets here. So if I wanted to use Life Miles to fly to, say, Europe in business class, I’d need to use some other miles (or cash) to position myself at an airport where a Star Alliance carrier flies aircraft with business class cabins.
On the plus side, Life Miles are great for intra-US flights. Even internationally there are no fuel surcharges.
The cost is $38.94 USD per 1000 miles, making it $0.01947 per mile when factoring in the bonus 1000 miles. Not a great value considering Brian (of The Points Guy) values them at 1.7 cents and Lucky (of One Mile at a Time) values them at 1.2 cents. But if you need to top off your account it might be the best time to buy.
2B Traveling 
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