Avianca "Lifemiles" - Questions and Discussion

[smit0847]

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

Trying to get from PER - Western Europe on SQ for late June. Cant seem to find any flights.

If you are looking for J you will not be able to find SQ J on flights where they operate an A380 or 77W aircraft as they don't usually offer these seats to their *A partners for redemptions (there are some random exceptions as documented in this forum).

Look at TG if you want flexibility, or if you have your heart set on SQ work out where they fly their regional product long-haul (I don't know).

 

[Aussie_flyer]

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

If you are looking for J you will not be able to find SQ J on flights where they operate an A380 or 77W aircraft as they don't usually offer these seats to their *A partners for redemptions (there are some random exceptions as documented in this forum).

Look at TG if you want flexibility, or if you have your heart set on SQ work out where they fly their regional product long-haul (I don't know).

SIN-IST is one way in to Europe with regional product.

 

[markis10]

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

Also look for departures from other cities, BNE has good availability to Paris etc.

 

[smit0847]

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

Be realistic about this program. SQ aren't going to give away a J seat PER-SIN-ICN-SFO for $900 to a Columbian airline when they sell it for $6000+.

Take what you can get, and where availability randomly opens up, jump at it.

 

[casanovawa]

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

Hmmm, ok, i have a friend that is travelling to the US later in the year and she isn't a member of Lifemiles program... Now i can't buy and gift them to her could i, it looks to me like there are only buy and transfer options and is there a cost for each step? If i was to buy the miles and then buy the ticket for her would Lifemiles have a problem with the persons account not being the passenger???

She has got a price i think flying Y on QF for about $2300 for a couple of stops in the US but looking at this i think i could probably get the same for about cash = $306.24, tax = $117.05, Redemption fee = $25 and 16,000 points = $240 so about $688 x 2 plus a $2-300 for a couple of internal flights so roughly $1600-1700...

 

[casanovawa]

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

And one last question, i have seen a few people here say they buy a redemption through LM and they get wait listed, i don't think i've been wait listed for anything before, so if i but a redemption over to the US on SQ and NH and the same back, perhaps in J, what is the likelihood of running into this waitlisting issue and does it mean i have a ticket or not or how long does it take to find out what i have paid for???

 

[Happy Trails]

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

Comment deleted at quoted member's request.

 

[kkl]

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

If you are looking for J you will not be able to find SQ J on flights where they operate an A380 or 77W aircraft as they don't usually offer these seats to their *A partners for redemptions (there are some random exceptions as documented in this forum).

Look at TG if you want flexibility, or if you have your heart set on SQ work out where they fly their regional product long-haul (I don't know).

I have found seats exFRA-SIN. SQ A380 in J. but not exSIN

 

[kkl]

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

Be realistic about this program. SQ aren't going to give away a J seat PER-SIN-ICN-SFO for $900 to a Columbian airline when they sell it for $6000+.

Take what you can get, and where availability randomly opens up, jump at it.

Found some

 

[gizzard]

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

Found some
View attachment 14764

That's right. See my earlier post:
http://www.australianfrequentflyer....ca-life-miles-new-ff-40866-19.html#post799051

 

[kkl]

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

That's right. See my earlier post:
http://www.australianfrequentflyer....ca-life-miles-new-ff-40866-19.html#post799051

Yup i saw your post and did a search myself. Wonder how the person looking for those flights couldnt find availability

 

[gizzard]

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

Yup i saw your post and did a search myself. Wonder how the person looking for those flights couldnt find availability

I don't think they posted the dates that they were interested in. Perhaps SQ haven't released any as far out as they would like to book.

 

[BEAV]

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

I don't think they posted the dates that they were interested in. Perhaps SQ haven't released any as far out as they would like to book.

If you're referencing my posts, my travel dates are Feb 2014. LM website listed available J space PER-SIN in a separate, single search (SQ website did, too), however would not display availability in a PER-SFO search. In three calls to LM they all insisted they can't (or won't) "piecemeal" an itinerary together, manually, even if all three segments are available. And for what it's worth, UA and AC websites listed available *A space all the way through PER-SFO in J.

As I posted earlier, I happily took the SIN-SFO space in J I was able to grab. The fact I wasn't able to get entire itinerary PER-SFO is more of a mystery than a complaint....

 

[bcworld]

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

The screenshots posted here clearly show there is something 'special' about LM and SQ.

Unfortunately it has now hit the blogs so it will probably be gone soon...book while you can!

 

[quokka77]

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

Thought I would post my experiences with LifeMiles, which is actually something of a summary of my short history in points planning.

My partner and I have the dubious distinction of being LifeMiles members before the program was any good / *A. We signed up for the old Taca Distancia program in 2009 on a trip to Guatemala. Our miles have long since expired from that time, but it did mean we had old memberships eligible to buy in the 2x promotion.

I have managed to accrue a fair whack of Amex MR over a relatively short space of time (not entirely sure how but not asking too many questions in case it’s an error in my favour). Enough for me and one of my kids to travel Malaysia return to Europe in J. So I thought, I’ll travel on the Amex points and my partner and our infant can travel on 2 LifeMiles J seats in parallel. I looked at avaiilabilty, dates and bought 75000 miles (150000 promo miles).

There were quite a few flights with 2 J seats showing as bookable through the LifeMiles engine both outbound and inbound on the dates we wanted, but I couldn’t progress the web-booking past selecting an available flight. I phoned the USA call centre and they tried to help me, but they couldn’t make the booking either. Doh. So, our backup plan: I’ll use the points to travel to a conference in the US in March 2014 (booked single J return SYD-ICN-LAX) and I could do this through the website no problems. Didn’t get the absolute lowest price for my ticket (if I had known in advance this is how I would use my points I would have only bought the minimum required for a 40% points and remainder cash booking, and this would have been several hundred dollars cheaper). Nevertheless I'm excited to have booked my first longhaul J on points. Also have the opportunity (HLO, without kids) to do a status run around the conference dates (Alaska via someplace eastern USA here we come…)

And we’ll be looking to use the Amex points for J return seats later this year for a northern hemisphere Spring trip (avoiding peak) on Malaysian, and we’ll stump up the money for my partner and the infant to travel in the same cabin on a paid ticket (but won’t be booking a seat for the infant, who will still be less than 2yo).

Phew!
Thanks AFF, you’re awesome.

 

[markis10]

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

There are quite a few reports of inventory showing available with SQ thats not being processed through to a final booking.

 

[RB]

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

There are quite a few reports of inventory showing available with SQ thats not being processed through to a final booking.

After reading this thread I was expecting this may be the case for a 2 passenger return J trip SYD-DEL but it all went through & was on CMT & the SIN site straight away & available for seat selection. Obviously can vary!

 

[bcworld]

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

After reading this thread I was expecting this may be the case for a 2 passenger return J trip SYD-DEL but it all went through & was on CMT & the SIN site straight away & available for seat selection. Obviously can vary!

There are many reports of successful ticketing. Re the blogging of this - turns out this was the inaugural blog post of someone who had previously been among the biggest advocates of keeping everything secret on the FT AV forum. Unbelievable.

 

[quokka77]

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

Yeah I saw that too (the now notorious yerffej201, right up there with Hrostoski as "most-hated" person on FT currently). On the other hand, I wouldn't even know about any of this points stuff if it wasn't for the generosity of people posting it here (and on flyertalk). So it's just a matter of where you draw the line (and surely *A staff must patrol FT and redemption tickets carefully for anomalies). In any event, I'm not sure that this will kill all the SQ inventory. Who knows how the inventory becomes available and how easy (or otherwise) it is for SQ to block it. Let's hope.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

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

Yeah I saw that too (the now notorious yerffej201, right up there with Hrostoski as "most-hated" person on FT currently). On the other hand, I wouldn't even know about any of this points stuff if it wasn't for the generosity of people posting it here (and on flyertalk). So it's just a matter of where you draw the line (and surely *A staff must patrol FT and redemption tickets carefully for anomalies). In any event, I'm not sure that this will kill all the SQ inventory. Who knows how the inventory becomes available and how easy (or otherwise) it is for SQ to block it. Let's hope.

the point is - the SQ inventory is available now.

most of the people complaining are saying things like 'oh I was going to book some SQ but now it might be gone'.

so they want to have their cake and eat it too.

There is no guarantee LM wouldn't have removed the inventory earlier, or that they won't remove it tomorrow or the day after. And no necessary link between it being blogged and removed (it might have been on LM's radar for a few days now waiting for an IT patch... we have no idea).

too many people complaining instead of just going ahead and booking what they need now.