Avianca LifeMiles – Bookings and Discussion

[RB]

Managed a get a LifeMiles booking yesterday. CTA-MUC in July 2025 on LH. LifeMiles is no longer our 1st option so good to use up some remaining miles

 

[nthd_nthd]

the Tax and Fee looks too high for YYC-SFO Flight for 4 ppl. What does everyone think?

 

[drron]

Early this year LM had J awards SYD-BKK and return virtually every day but one day they just disappeared.

 

[bcworld]

View attachment 418931
the Tax and Fee looks too high for YYC-SFO Flight for 4 ppl. What does everyone think?

Don't see any issue with that.

Air Canada quotes AUD512 vs USD311.64 here.

 

[nthd_nthd]

Don't see any issue with that.

Air Canada quotes AUD512 vs USD311.64 here.

Was surprised by the higher tax and fee than U.S airport/U.S Carrier charged

 

[nthd_nthd]

FYI,

I Also, found out from LifeMile agent that because my family member middle name has a dash - in their names that throw error. If I removed it I could go ahead with the booking. Which I checked and he was correct. Wish the error could have been more specific and saved me a lot of headache on that middle name.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Was surprised by the higher tax and fee than U.S airport/U.S Carrier charged

I don’t see any carrier charges there - as in fuel surcharges. I see the redemption charge of USD25 per person, that’s normal, and levied by LM for their… err… service?

 

[NDiddy]

Managed to book my FIL on YYZ-LIS-AMS return with TAP in J. 63K points +72 USD taxes each way.

 

[elanshin]

I believe one of the advantages of LM (even if its hard) is you can get some very whacky cheap bookings by using mix cabin and they'll take an average cost. So if you pair a Y with an F... It'll be cheaper than just booking the F outright.

Difficulty is of course finding these unicorns.

 

[jgm]

I believe one of the advantages of LM (even if its hard) is you can get some very whacky cheap bookings by using mix cabin and they'll take an average cost. So if you pair a Y with an F... It'll be cheaper than just booking the F outright.

Difficulty is of course finding these unicorns.

I changed my MEL-DEL-YVR-YYC aeroplan flight to BNE-SFO with LM and SFO-YYC with Aeroplan all in J. I would have preferred MEL-SFO, but the available dates didn't work. I got ~105k aeroplan points back and burnt 80k LM (and extended the expiration date). I could have burnt a few QF points, but it was better value to pay cash for MEL-BNE.

 

[BobbyFlyer]

I just redeemed 50k LM points on ANA Per-Nrt next week in J. They’ve upgraded the aircraft from a 788 to 789 so more J seats which although they released only 1 J in April this year there were lots released within 2 weeks of departure as has been mentioned here before…the day I booked for next week had 3 J available on LM…

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Interesting that Aeroplan is offering *connections* via BKK on TG for certain dates. I was looking at June for a friend and TG MEL-BKK-FRA-DBV came up as an option. TG all the way to FRA with LH connecting to DBV.

A search for MEL-BKK only yielded no results for TG.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Sadly I cannot find it today! The stools in BKK were 20 hours and FRA 21 hours, so getting bags off and skipping any last segment should have been easy enough.

I was looking on 7 and 8 June… completely gone now, Dunno about other dates.

 

[Gold Member]

All of these LM IT award booking engine challenges have tested my patience. Needing to book two one-way awards from Australia to Europe (inc stop in Asia) with an inflated number of miles is achievable, but adds insult to the injury and continues to further diminish the value of Lifemiles.

I’ve been testing various city pairs that offer the best value for money by skip lagging (aka hidden city ticketing). Skip lagging is not for everyone, but if Lifemiles is going to treat us like this, I feel I’m within my rights to treat them poorly in return (even though it’s often the operating metal that suffers, not the FF Loyalty program itself).

I’ve found combinations with one particular carrier that offers a ~50% discount on the number of miles required for EU-Asia and ~25% discount for AU-Asia. I’m sure there are more options with other carriers - I haven’t checked them all. Some of you probably know many already! Of course it’s all subject to availability, and due to married segment logic, not all city pairs return the same result so it can be time consuming and it’s very much a case of YMMV.

Mindful of the greedy bloggers seeking to generate a few extra clicks and ruin it for everyone, I’m happy to share the combos that I’ve found. For all you budding hackers interested in some fun, perhaps we can communicate via some cryptic language?

 

[NDiddy]

Mindful of the greedy bloggers seeking to generate a few extra clicks and ruin it for everyone, I’m happy to share the combos that I’ve found. Some of you probably know many already! For all you budding hackers interested in some fun, perhaps we can communicate via some cryptic language?

I'd be up for this mind you I am just awful at cryptic stuff

Question on this though - I thought people run a huge risk if they are caught using the hidden city trick? Plus I assume you'd have to only have carry on?

 

[Flashback]

I'd be up for this mind you I am just awful at cryptic stuff

Question on this though - I thought people run a huge risk if they are caught using the hidden city trick? Plus I assume you'd have to only have carry on?

Yes, plus the usual risk of if there are irrops then they may send you another route to the actual ticketed destination etc., but there's ways around that too.

 

[NDiddy]

Yes, plus the usual risk of if there are irrops then they may send you another route to the actual ticketed destination etc., but there's ways around that too.

I have so much to learn...

 

[Gold Member]

Question on this though - I thought people run a huge risk if they are caught using the hidden city trick? Plus I assume you'd have to only have carry on?

Evidence (my personal research trawling various forums of people that have skip lagged and their respective experiences) suggests that the operating airline/loyalty program won’t do much if at all. Just don’t make a habit of it. Worst case, it’s Lifemiles - I thought we were all trying to zero out our balances anyway!?

Yes to carry-on only. I went HLO a few years ago and never looked back.

 

[NDiddy]

Worst case, it’s Lifemiles - I thought we were all trying to zero out our balances anyway!?

Amen to this

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Evidence (my personal research trawling various forums of people that have skip lagged and their respective experiences) suggests that the operating airline/loyalty program won’t do much if at all. Just don’t make a habit of it. Worst case, it’s Lifemiles - I thought we were all trying to zero out our balances anyway!?

Yes to carry-on only. I went HLO a few years ago and never looked back.

Yeah, i’d say tickets on partner airlines with skip-lagging are pretty low risk.

You’d want to avoid tickets issued by US airline programs, and !ufthansa group. Plus Finnair, given they’re particularly anti-consumer.