Avianca "Lifemiles" - Questions and Discussion

[joeborgo]

Re: Avianca Transfer Miles promo (of course you need some miles to start with)

Hi wafliron

Cash and points require a min 40% of the required miles therefore for the 200000 redemption can be reduced to 80000 + cash. The cash component points work out at $0.01275 per point.

The points expire after 2 years of no activity but can be extended simply by buying as little as 1000 points or redeeming a flight etc.

The tickets that I redeemed were ticketed through Taca and they have a call centre in Sydney if you need to call them.

Regards
Joe

 

[wafliron]

Re: Avianca Transfer Miles promo (of course you need some miles to start with)

Cash and points require a min 40% of the required miles therefore for the 200000 redemption can be reduced to 80000 + cash. The cash component points work out at $0.01275 per point.

The points expire after 2 years of no activity but can be extended simply by buying as little as 1000 points or redeeming a flight etc.

Thanks - that's very helpful. So, just to confirm, all I should need for a 200,000-point award flight is 40% x 200,000 = 80,000 miles, which I can currently get by buying 40,000 miles (once doubled to 80,000 under current promo) for 3c USD/mile?

The tickets that I redeemed were ticketed through Taca and they have a call centre in Sydney if you need to call them.

Really? Do you have a number for the Sydney call centre? All I could find a number for / reach when I had to call them a month or two back was a call centre in the USA (with very bad telephone lines).

 

[rao]

Re: Avianca Transfer Miles promo (of course you need some miles to start with)

Really? Do you have a number for the Sydney call centre? All I could find a number for / reach when I had to call them a month or two back was a call centre in the USA (with very bad telephone lines).

The Sydney number is (02) 82480020. I tried calling this morning to make a redemption booking and the agent said they don't do it. Advised me to email or call another number (a very long number).
That's right, purchasing 40,000 miles = 80,000 miles in your account with the bonus, and minimum miles = 40%.

Anyone had any success booking SQ flights by contacting the call centre? I just called the US call centre (+1-800) to enquire on the availability of ADL-SIN on SQ J in mid-December. ANA tool shows availability (e.g. 13th Dec) but the agent could not see any available flights for the whole of Dec and Jan in the system?

Looks like I have to purchase a one-way Y ticket on SQ/QF ($1000 :! or redeem using KF miles.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Re: Avianca Transfer Miles promo (of course you need some miles to start with)

The Sydney number is (02) 82480020. I tried calling this morning to make a redemption booking and the agent said they don't do it. Advised me to email or call another number (a very long number).
That's right, purchasing 40,000 miles = 80,000 miles in your account with the bonus, and minimum miles = 40%.

Anyone had any success booking SQ flights by contacting the call centre? I just called the US call centre (+1-800) to enquire on the availability of ADL-SIN on SQ J in mid-December. ANA tool shows availability (e.g. 13th Dec) but the agent could not see any available flights for the whole of Dec and Jan in the system?

Looks like I have to purchase a one-way Y ticket on SQ/QF ($1000 :! or redeem using KF miles.

USDM is usually pretty good at seeing regional SQ J if its there. Normally I find if i can see it on ANA then I can book it (never had a case where USDM couldn't see it.) You might want to try again.

 

[RB]

Re: Avianca Transfer Miles promo (of course you need some miles to start with)

Took the plunge to buy more miles this morning. Both Mrs RB & I tried to buy miles using credit card. Nothing to show the transaction failed but as yet no miles showing & credit card not debited. A call to US & the advice seems to be to waait & see if it happens during Sth American office hours. I had seen someone earlier where miles did show show straight away.
Anyone else in the saame situation?

 

[canne]

Re: Avianca Transfer Miles promo (of course you need some miles to start with)

Took the plunge to buy more miles this morning. Both Mrs RB & I tried to buy miles using credit card. Nothing to show the transaction failed but as yet no miles showing & credit card not debited. A call to US & the advice seems to be to waait & see if it happens during Sth American office hours. I had seen someone earlier where miles did show show straight away.
Anyone else in the saame situation?

I also took the plunge yesterday and bought 75,000 miles using 28Degrees MC and the miles showed up in the account instantly. there was a transaction successful page showing CC number (only last 3 or 4 digits) but it was showing blank against transaction reference number. I didnt bother to check if my Credit card was debited yet. I did call 28Degrees just prior to making the transaction that I will soon be doing an online transaction worth about $2250 USD with a South American country for the purchase of air miles.

 

[gizzard]

Re: Avianca Transfer Miles promo (of course you need some miles to start with)

I also took the plunge yesterday and bought 75,000 miles using 28Degrees MC and the miles showed up in the account instantly. there was a transaction successful page showing CC number (only last 3 or 4 digits) but it was showing blank against transaction reference number. I didnt bother to check if my Credit card was debited yet. I did call 28Degrees just prior to making the transaction that I will soon be doing an online transaction worth about $2250 USD with a South American country for the purchase of air miles.

Ditto for me. Yesterday I rang cc company to warn them, bought the miles and got a confirmation screen back and could see the miles immediately. My available credit on my cc has dropped although the transaction isn't showing up yet so it's clearly going through.

 

[canne]

Re: Avianca Transfer Miles promo (of course you need some miles to start with)

Ditto for me. Yesterday I rang cc company to warn them, bought the miles and got a confirmation screen back and could see the miles immediately. My available credit on my cc has dropped although the transaction isn't showing up yet so it's clearly going through.

Yes my CC limit is also showing as reduced by amount $2153 which works out at a FX rate of 1 AUD = 1.045 USD, pretty close to spot FX rate I noted on Monday on Latitude GT website, so pretty happy with that too.

 

[RB]

Re: Avianca Transfer Miles promo (of course you need some miles to start with)

Took the plunge to buy more miles this morning. Both Mrs RB & I tried to buy miles using credit card. Nothing to show the transaction failed but as yet no miles showing & credit card not debited. A call to US & the advice seems to be to waait & see if it happens during Sth American office hours. I had seen someone earlier where miles did show show straight away.
Anyone else in the saame situation?

Just rang US again & they had no record of a transaction(neither did credit card mob)& suggested we try again. Did so with the same Citi credit card but this time with the ancilliary card in my name. Success & miles credited straight away. Mrs RB had to use credit card in her name(the one used this morning) to also get the success-maybe the system doesn't like a purchase made by a card in someone elses name, or we were just unlucky.
Now to book a ticket

 

[wafliron]

Re: Avianca Transfer Miles promo (of course you need some miles to start with)

The Sydney number is (02) 82480020. I tried calling this morning to make a redemption booking and the agent said they don't do it. Advised me to email or call another number (a very long number).

Ahh, that's a pity. Having a local call centre to deal with for redemptions would have made things soooo much easier.

That's right, purchasing 40,000 miles = 80,000 miles in your account with the bonus, and minimum miles = 40%.

Great - thanks.

 

[rao]

Re: Avianca Transfer Miles promo (of course you need some miles to start with)

I tried calling the Avianca US call centre instead since TACA couldn't see any availability for SQ regional J (ADL-SIN). Once again no availability even though I can see it with both the ANA tool and Awardtravelr. The agent suggested calling in again next week to check as Avianca and TACA only joined Star Alliance recently, and the administrative issues have yet to be sorted.


I'm more inclined to believe that SQ has blocked partner redemptions. Abit of hassle travelling ex-AUS to SIN (e.g. ADL-MEL-BKK-SIN on TG). Alternatively, I could get a Y OW fare (albeit expensive in Dec).

 

[arraitch]

Re: Avianca Transfer Miles promo (of course you need some miles to start with)

Thanks for sharing your experience, rao.

The agent's suggestion of calling again next week smacks of a fobbing off to me. What does jump out from the AV LM booking engine is the absence of SQ from the drop-down list of preferred carriers. Whether that is AV getting their house in order, or SQ blocking ... whichever, it doesn't inspire confidence that I will be able to book award flights with SQ for a planned jaunt next August. Oh, and our desired destination of MRU isn't recognised by the AV booking engine either.

 

[Princess Fiona]

I'm in
Couldn't get my Amex to work for some reason but the MC did the trick


Now to plan on maximising my return

For anyone planning on buying miles a little reminder that the 2 for 1 buy miles deal is only on until 28th Sep !

 

[kpc]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A

I'm in
Couldn't get my Amex to work for some reason but the MC did the trick


Now to plan on maximising my return

For anyone planning on buying miles a little reminder that the 2 for 1 buy miles deal is only on until 28th Sep !

Just bought some as well to get us (x5:shock to the US in J class....my 28 degrees card was blocked last nite so I had to speak to GE fraud department to get it unblocked this am!

 

[gizzard]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A

Couldn't get my Amex to work for some reason but the MC did the trick

I've now taken this to the next step and have used my LifeMiles to book a flight. I had some issues with the payment so thought that I'd provide a summary.

I had forewarned my bank that I'd have an unusual credit card transaction coming through and they duly noted it.
I went through the booking process and the only problem I had was when it came to entering the address. In the end I went for the following options:
Other 01
"Australia"............... State
City Street............... Number and Name

I didn't enter the postcode at all.

On hitting "Pay Now" I was given a screen (sometimes briefly) and it had the booking reference number shown. Have a pen and paper ready and make a note of it before the screen disappears. If the transaction is rejected, as mine was, then you don't get a second chance to find it.

My Amex card was rejected. I tried again thinking that the address wasn't correct but, again, it was rejected. I couldn't try again as the flights were no longer available....I must have used them up with the 2 bookings. The only way to try again was to get them cancelled.

I tried phoning Bogota but couldn't get through. I couldn't find an international number for the US office. I phoned the UK sales office but they couldn't help but gave me the number of the Madrid office. I tried them but the people that deal with LifeMiles issues were only available overnight (after midnight EST). I tried Madrid at 8am EST but couldn't get an answer so tried Bogota again.

The guy there was very helpful and spoke excellent english and liaised with the payment department. They told me that there was no problem their end but the bank was blocking it. They cancelled the 2 bookings so that I could try again. I tried one while still on the phone to Bogota and they still said all was ok their end and he cancelled the new booking.

I phoned my bank and they told me that there was no indication of any transaction coming through. Nothing pending and nothing blocked. I tried another booking while on the phone to the bank but still they had nothing showing.

I got back on the phone to Bogota and spoke to someone else who's english was, again, perfect. Again they couldn't find any problem but told me that they could make a booking for me but it would cost US$80. He cancelled my latest 2 bookings and I had another go at an online booking with a Mastercard. Success!!

So, in summary:-

- I used 2 different Mastercards to buy my points and then the flights.
- Like Princess Fiona, my Amex didn't work even though it's linked to the same credit card account as one of the Mastercards.
- Bogota customer service were very helpful and should be called if you have a problem, +5714013434.
- Make sure that you note the Booking Reference number that is displayed, sometimes briefly, after hitting "Pay Now" and getting the credit card rejection or cancellation message.

I have since received an email confirming the booking and my LifeMiles have been deducted. CheckMyTrip is showing my booking but the Avianca site gives an error message when I try and view the booking:
"Your ticket number or reservation code is presenting an error. Please contact one of our team."
I checked with Avianca and this is simply because none of the flights are with Avianca.

The booking is showing up on the web-site of the airline on which the first flight is being made.

 

[Princess Fiona]

That's terrific info, thankyou for posting

 

[travelislife]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A

The US 800 phone number can be used 24hrs a day and is usually pretty helpful, free also when using skype, but good to hear it all worked out in the end.

 

[RB]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A

The US 800 phone number can be used 24hrs a day and is usually pretty helpful, free also when using skype, but good to hear it all worked out in the end.

I also used skype for free at one stage to speak to the US office. I ended up hitting 2,3,1 to get to a good spot to discuss my issues. 2 was for English & I hadn't picked that up the first time I rang.
My experience is all good with confirmed seats on TG F Syd-MXP return & seat selection done thru Thais Aust office.

 

[futaris]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A

There is now an Avianca Life Miles forum on Flyertalk.

Additionally, Singapore Airlines now seems to be bookable again (online). It is in the drop down list, and I've seen Economy and Business award availability...

 

[smit0847]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A

Additionally, Singapore Airlines now seems to be bookable again (online). It is in the drop down list, and I've seen Economy and Business award availability...

I can see SQ J availability on regional J A330 from ADL and BNE, and 777-300(non ER) from MEL - 2-2-2 angled bed looks the same as VA new A330 J.

I thought the only non A380 SQ into MEL was a 77W?