Avianca "Lifemiles" - Questions and Discussion

[Alanslegal]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

I'm glad we r having this issue right now bcos all these newbies and bandwagon people who decided to buy points without proper consideration and research, and when sh** hits the fan come only here bcos they cant book what they want when they want, to whine about these 'useless' points. Hopefully this past couple of weeks will be enough to scare people off and leave us regulars (and not half of australia) who have been around for years continued access to good value business and first class fares. The points aren't useless at all, I saw some avaliable with AC last night and was about to pull the trigger for a friend to come to our wedding in Vegas next year. Just need to confirm her leave dates before I book it.

 

[Alanslegal]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

Has there been any talk of them using these sales to supplement their cash flow? Risk of the points being lost if not used immediately? Seems all a little dodgy....

Assuming the worst case scenario and AV LM collapsed... just do a credit card charge back.

I think LM got upset that half of australia was redeeming TG so they blocked it unilaterally and temporarily. That said there are other options out there like USA to EUR if you are flexible (like I am).

I bought for the first time this promo and atm just about everything i was interested in has vanished.

With award tickets, plan your holiday around your seats not plan your holiday then hope for seats.

I once booked some J class tickets 3 months out only to see then $2k cheaper when I checked a couple of days before the flight was due to depart

And if the prices went up you would have been smiling at yourself.

 

[Masonic Phantom]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

I'm glad we r having this issue right now bcos all these newbies and bandwagon people who decided to buy points without proper consideration and research, and when sh** hits the fan come only here bcos they cant book what they want when they want, to whine about these 'useless' points. Hopefully this past couple of weeks will be enough to scare people off and leave us regulars (and not half of australia) who have been around for years continued access to good value business and first class fares. The points aren't useless at all, I saw some avaliable with AC last night and was about to pull the trigger for a friend to come to our wedding in Vegas next year. Just need to confirm her leave dates before I book it.

That,s telling them....I concur.

 

[FreddyFattler]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

With award tickets, plan your holiday around your seats not plan your holiday then hope for seats.

Yep definitely.

My holidays are rostered but swappable so i was only at the stage of playing around with the options available.

If worst comes to worst i know i will still be able to make use of the miles in one way or another.

 

[boomy]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

I'm glad we r having this issue right now bcos all these newbies and bandwagon people who decided to buy points without proper consideration and research, and when sh** hits the fan come only here bcos they cant book what they want when they want, to whine about these 'useless' points. Hopefully this past couple of weeks will be enough to scare people off and leave us regulars (and not half of australia) who have been around for years continued access to good value business and first class fares.

Take it easy old sport, you were a newbie once too

 

[damienp]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

I'm glad we r having this issue right now bcos all these newbies and bandwagon people who decided to buy points without proper consideration and research, and when sh** hits the fan come only here bcos they cant book what they want when they want, to whine about these 'useless' points. Hopefully this past couple of weeks will be enough to scare people off and leave us regulars (and not half of australia) who have been around for years continued access to good value business and first class fares. The points aren't useless at all, I saw some avaliable with AC last night and was about to pull the trigger for a friend to come to our wedding in Vegas next year. Just need to confirm her leave dates before I book it.

I'm newbie to this forum but not new to this game.

how would proper consideration and research prevent people from being hit by LifeMiles unilaterally taking away all connecting flights from SYD via BKK to other parts of the world without notice?

 

[anat0l]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

I'm newbie to this forum but not new to this game.

how would proper consideration and research prevent people from being hit by LifeMiles unilaterally taking away all connecting flights from SYD via BKK to other parts of the world without notice?

I believe "proper consideration and research" here refers simply to understanding this game of buying miles and burning them for awards.

Fact is, goalposts move. Stuff happens. This is the biggest risk to burning awards rather than just buying cash tickets. Sure, with cash tickets, prices can change and sales come and go, but you otherwise get what you want almost always when you want it without messing around.

With award tickets, you are competing on space, ticketing restrictions (e.g. SQ's T-14 to/from Australia), connection times, booking engine bugs, etc. etc. If you're not prepared to put up with that, then this game is not for you. The potential savings (or "reward", no pun intended) can be substantial, but it's no good jumping in if you don't understand what you potentially have to put up with.

The bugs - if that is what they are - that we see in the previous weeks are just another event. You roll with it. Sure, email LifeMiles and ask them what the hell is going on, but are your miles now useless? No. If you were stockpiling miles with no specific purpose and then you really have to ask yourself if you've actually lost anything yet, coupled with the fact that your stockpiling is a risk in itself that you appeared prepared to take (and hope you understood what that risk meant).

 

[Alanslegal]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

Take it easy old sport, you were a newbie once too

I was a newbie but I didn't come online to whine when award bookings didn't work out the way I hoped it would be I remember that one Friday night, many nights ago, where I saw the thread about "how to fly business/first class for not much more than economy. I then spent the next 72 hours solid of my life looking up on this topic, thoroughly researching, trying to reason why flights could be so good value, looking at the pro's and con's, before even considering why I should spend $$ to buy frequent flyer points. Now, all I see, is newbies - which I was once - come along, buy points because someone they knew bought points, they are inflexible with time, they are inflexible with dates, or whatever and then whinge when they can't book tickets. Even five years after buying my first set of points, I am still learning a lot about buying points from different airlines, best ways of redeeming them - and to see people just come online, once or maybe twice, who appears not to even want to 'learn' how to do it, let alone contribute back to the community .... that's not cool.

Anyway I like to think my contribution, over the years, have been very helpful to some, hopefully more than some, and enabled other members to fly in the nicer cabins of a plane.

And here's a thread that I thought would help people, started back in 09/2011

As more and more people get interested with US DM, especially during promotional periods, this thread could provide a handy snapshot of what type of itineraries have been booked, and potential flyers can then replicate or use some of those routing ideas for their own bookings.

http://www.australianfrequentflyer....ividend-miles-post-your-33057.html#post491787

 

[damienp]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

I was a newbie but I didn't come online to whine when award bookings didn't work out the way I hoped it would be I remember that one Friday night, many nights ago, where I saw the thread about "how to fly business/first class for not much more than economy. I then spent the next 72 hours solid of my life looking up on this topic, thoroughly researching, trying to reason why flights could be so good value, looking at the pro's and con's, before even considering why I should spend $$ to buy frequent flyer points. Now, all I see, is newbies - which I was once - come along, buy points because someone they knew bought points, they are inflexible with time, they are inflexible with dates, or whatever and then whinge when they can't book tickets. Even five years after buying my first set of points, I am still learning a lot about buying points from different airlines, best ways of redeeming them - and to see people just come online, once or maybe twice, who appears not to even want to 'learn' how to do it, let alone contribute back to the community .... that's not cool.

Anyway I like to think my contribution, over the years, have been very helpful to some, hopefully more than some, and enabled other members to fly in the nicer cabins of a plane.

And here's a thread that I thought would help people, started back in 09/2011



<link removed>

Absolutely agree that this is a community about sharing experience among each other. But being a not-so-newbie doesn't mean that you can judge people and say ALL newbies bought points and are being inflexible with time/dates etc. I'm sure a lot of newbie would have spent quite a bit of time researching on possible routes before jumping into buying the points, afterall it's not that cheap.

Agreed that there are associated risk with buying points and learning it the hard way this time with LifeMiles' unpredictable enhancement. To be honest they caught me off guard when I'm about to book the ticket right after buying the points.

The discussion was just about how this 'possible' incident/bug has been handled badly by LifeMiles and is by no means whinging. As if they do not fix it at the end, there is not much we can do.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

well, I'm also complaining.

there was nothing on which to predict this current situation.

 

[drron]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

The problem is that the more people in the know the more likely are we to kill the golden goose.There are plenty of warning signs-SQ only making cheap awards to/from Australia available to partners at 14 days out.AA only making SAAver long haul premium awards available on their metal ~ 14 days out-how long before partners pull their awards from AA/USDM?
I think over the next year or two there will be major changes to burn rates for FF programs.QFF may even seem to be reasonable.
There are though still going to be ways to get good value but as Alanslegal says it will be about planning trips around the awards you can get rather than awards around the trip you have planned.

 

[boomy]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

I was a newbie but I didn't come online to whine when award bookings didn't work out the way I hoped it would be I remember that one Friday night, many nights ago, where I saw the thread about "how to fly business/first class for not much more than economy. I then spent the next 72 hours solid of my life looking up on this topic, thoroughly researching, trying to reason why flights could be so good value, looking at the pro's and con's, before even considering why I should spend $$ to buy frequent flyer points. Now, all I see, is newbies - which I was once - come along, buy points because someone they knew bought points, they are inflexible with time, they are inflexible with dates, or whatever and then whinge when they can't book tickets. Even five years after buying my first set of points, I am still learning a lot about buying points from different airlines, best ways of redeeming them - and to see people just come online, once or maybe twice, who appears not to even want to 'learn' how to do it, let alone contribute back to the community .... that's not cool.

Anyway I like to think my contribution, over the years, have been very helpful to some, hopefully more than some, and enabled other members to fly in the nicer cabins of a plane.

And here's a thread that I thought would help people, started back in 09/2011



http://www.australianfrequentflyer....ividend-miles-post-your-33057.html#post491787

Hi Alanslegal, first I want to thank you for your contribution over the years. I learned a lot about buying and using miles from posters like yourself and I hope you were not offended by my previous post, that was not my intention.
People new to the game bought miles after reading threads like the one you just quoted (I hope no one spent thousands of dollars without doing some research) but no matter how much reading one did, this current situation with LM is different. If we were talking about another devaluation then I would be the first to say that's life in the milage game, stop the whining, it's still cheaper then buying a revenue ticket. But here we have something new and no one knows if it's a temporary glitch or worse. Regarding miles being useless or not, it all depends where you need to go and when. As I said before, I don't think it's wise to put all your eggs in one basket because unexpected things can and will happen. For people who travel often and want to do it in the pointy end it's best to take part in more then one programme IMO.

 

[Alanslegal]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

For those wondering, I can see some TG F xx_-BKK-SYD availability. I won't say what the xx_ is but if you do some simple searching, you would easily find it. I tried a few dates and are available.

**EDIT** AND I can see SYD-BKK-xx_ as well, wow!!

 

[bcworld]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

For those wondering, I can see some TG F xx_-BKK-SYD availability. I won't say what the xx_ is but if you do some simple searching, you would easily find it. I tried a few dates and are available.

**EDIT** AND I can see SYD-BKK-xx_ as well, wow!!

I think I posted the xx_ the other day in the successful booking thread.

 

[Alanslegal]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

I think I posted the xx_ the other day in the successful booking thread.

awesome

 

[bcworld]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

awesome

Actually it was this thread...a few days ago.

 

[Alanslegal]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

Actually it was this thread...a few days ago.

And I ran over to the successful booking thread just now

So not much searching required after all Get in whilst you can I suppose.

 

[anna2103]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

any one had luck on SQ flights?

 

[VAG newbie]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

For those wondering, I can see some TG F xx_-BKK-SYD availability. I won't say what the xx_ is but if you do some simple searching, you would easily find it. I tried a few dates and are available.

**EDIT** AND I can see SYD-BKK-xx_ as well, wow!!

Thanks for sharing. Found it too!

But as I can still see lots of flights in economy transiting in SE Asia while searching, and now this, obviously it's still within LM's routing rule (ie. No change), can't we stress on that when we make a phone booking?

 

[stoneman]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

Ahhh! Bless them, they've even tidied up those god awful captcha 'words' so you can read them