Avianca "Lifemiles" - Questions and Discussion

[anat0l]

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

Well everyone*, congratulations. You're famous again: Business Class 10k Award Miles One Way to Asia via Cabotage/Throwaway Route - TheMrPickles

In other news, if you've ever wanted to take that trip - you know what I'm talking about - maybe consider buying it soon.


* referring mainly to those who have contributed a lot to the knowledge base here, but probably enough people here who have put "info" on the thread to make it quite visible to the search engines

 

[MaxLaughton]

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

Seems like that route is most useful for people in the US, no?

 

[JohnK]

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

Are the same people still abusing the system and bragging about it? I would call them selfish but that won't get me anywhere.

I am trying to help out a friend travel for Christmas and some of the options lead to Avianca. I have been trying to navigate the website and it is not that user friendly.

I think it is 60,000 Lifemiles for a SYD-BKK return in economy and outside of 100% bonus buy miles promotion it is ridiculously expensive.

If I chose the cash + miles option is it 40% Lifemiles required and how much cash? I have been trying to find a reference on the website but I think you need to register and have some Lifemiles to look at award redemptions. Is there a chart (similar to BMI) where one can look cash + miles redemptions?

 

[anat0l]

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

Is there a chart (similar to BMI) where one can look cash + miles redemptions?

Mileage chart:

https://www.lifemiles.com/eng/inc/starredawards.aspx

Prices are given for return redemptions. One-way is half the cost given.

For cash+miles, the best value is actually if you use 50% miles and buy the other 50%, at the lowest price of 1.5c per mile ($15 per 1000 miles).

As far as I know, you need to register to look for award redemptions (in fact, you need to already have an account to be eligible for any future buy promotions - you can't just sign up for one as soon as a promo arrives). But you don't need to have enough miles (indeed, any) to look for award redemptions.

 

[JohnK]

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

Thanks. I managed to find that award chart but wasn't sure where to searach cash + miles

For cash+miles, the best value is actually if you use 50% miles and buy the other 50%, at the lowest price of 1.5c per mile ($15 per 1000 miles).

So buying miles for an award is always 1.5c per mile or only during bonus promotion?

That would make the earlier calculation for SYD-BKK in economy look a little better

- Buy 30,000 Lifemiles during 100% bonus promotion for ~AUD500
- Buy 30,000 Lifemiles for cash + miles for ~AUD500

and taxes of ~AUD200 make it ~AUD1,200 to go to Thailand over Christmas.

Is the expectation of another 100% bonus promotion in October? There is some award availability on 23 December but could disappear if we wait 2-3 weeks.

 

[JessicaTam]

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

Thanks. I managed to find that award chart but wasn't sure where to searach cash + miles


So buying miles for an award is always 1.5c per mile or only during bonus promotion?

That would make the earlier calculation for SYD-BKK in economy look a little better

- Buy 30,000 Lifemiles during 100% bonus promotion for ~AUD500
- Buy 30,000 Lifemiles for cash + miles for ~AUD500

and taxes of ~AUD200 make it ~AUD1,200 to go to Thailand over Christmas.

Is the expectation of another 100% bonus promotion in October? There is some award availability on 23 December but could disappear if we wait 2-3 weeks.

The best price for points+$ is 1.5c, the worst is 3.0c. The fewer points you use, the cheaper the remaining points cost. Up to a point, and then they get dearer again. It is best to pick a route and play with the 'more points' and 'more money' buttons to find the sweet spot.

 

[Nizar]

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

For cash+miles, the best value is actually if you use 50% miles and buy the other 50%, at the lowest price of 1.5c per mile ($15 per 1000 miles).

While this is true to reduce the amount of miles required and as such to stretch out the capacity of the annual 150k limit I usually use the MAXIMUM amount of cash that I can and the MINIMUM amount of miles meaning that I get 60% of the required miles at 1.576c each and I only need to use the miles in my account for the remaining 40%.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

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

While this is true to reduce the amount of miles required and as such to stretch out the capacity of the annual 150k limit I usually use the MAXIMUM amount of cash that I can and the MINIMUM amount of miles meaning that I get 60% of the required miles at 1.576c each and I only need to use the miles in my account for the remaining 40%.

you can have more than one account, eg anyone in your family. so there is no annual limit. you can buy award tix for anyone...

 

[Nizar]

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

you can have more than one account, eg anyone in your family. so there is no annual limit. you can buy award tix for anyone...

Cheers yes I understand that but there is still an annual limit per account.

 

[seritonin]

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

Well everyone*, congratulations. You're famous again: Business Class 10k Award Miles One Way to Asia via Cabotage/Throwaway Route - TheMrPickles

In other news, if you've ever wanted to take that trip - you know what I'm talking about - maybe consider buying it soon.


* referring mainly to those who have contributed a lot to the knowledge base here, but probably enough people here who have put "info" on the thread to make it quite visible to the search engines

Ahhh... bloggers, everyone hates them when the 'reveal' something to the masses. I laughed at the notion of 'secret deals' need to be sustained so everyone in the know can book them when they decide to travel in the future. Everyone knows these 'loopholes' do not last very long and if one has no plans to travel in the next 11-12 months, it will not benefit. If it is not due to bloggers, Lifemiles probably will close the loopholes eventually but technically they would have to tweak their chart since North America is defined loosely as United States and Canada, there is no geographical distinctions like United has on their award chart. The practice of dumping segments however can be irritating to the airlines but it's being in practice for a long time and I don't think it will stop.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

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

Cheers yes I understand that but there is still an annual limit per account.

yes but still begs the question why you are worried about the limit.

 

[Nizar]

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

yes but still begs the question why you are worried about the limit.

Far from worried my friend just thought its something worth mentioning, that's all

 

[smit0847]

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

Ahhh... bloggers, everyone hates them when the 'reveal' something to the masses. I laughed at the notion of 'secret deals' need to be sustained so everyone in the know can book them when they decide to travel in the future. Everyone knows these 'loopholes' do not last very long and if one has no plans to travel in the next 11-12 months, it will not benefit. If it is not due to bloggers, Lifemiles probably will close the loopholes eventually but technically they would have to tweak their chart since North America is defined loosely as United States and Canada, there is no geographical distinctions like United has on their award chart. The practice of dumping segments however can be irritating to the airlines but it's being in practice for a long time and I don't think it will stop.

My issue with bloggers publicising deals that are buried in forums/locked spreadsheets is the effect publicising the deal has on the deal, and their reasons for publicising the deal in the first place.

Most of the time, when the deal is blogged, it dies within a day. This is because with so many people reading about it and sharing it around (re-blogging etc), there is a very sharp spike in the number of people booking the deal, and it brings the irregularity to the airlines attention. Some of the less savvy travellers may also call the airline to ask if the deal is legitimate, which also brings it immediately to their attention. By the time it makes the front page of flyertalk, the airline has corrected the error because it is everywhere.

I'm not suggesting that only certain people deserve to know the deal (i.e. people reading this thread), but I truly believe that more people get to utilise the deal (and over a much longer period) if it is kept within a specific forum or spreadsheet because when it is blogged it is killed so quickly that very few people can actually utilise it, and then it is gone forever. Do you think it's 'fairer' if everyone knows about it but they only have 8 hours to use it before its corrected? This leads to people panicking and booking things they later wish to change because they did it in such a rush.
If this is the result of blogging a secret deal, then I question the motive of the blogger. Do they think it is better for a large number of people to be able to use a deal but only for 8 hours, than a smaller group of dedicated contributors to a forum/online group being able to use it over a long period of time? I bet the USDM GUM deal would get corrected mighty fast if Ben Sandilands wrote instructions on how to do it on The Age travel site.

So, what is the reason for the blogger to want to kill a deal? Because publicising a deal, even if it will be useless to read about once it is cancelled, increases the popularity of the blog. This makes the blogger feel more important and may also drive revenue from ad blocks, CC referrals etc. If the blogger wanted to keep the deal alive the last thing they would do is publicise and promote it on their blog.

Yes, there are some deals I would never have heard about if these bloggers hadn't publicised them because I don't read some forums (I find the trick it threads on FT like trying to decipher ancient script and I still don't know why the 'Gummy Bear' is called that?), but I personally would rather miss out on these deals and only know about those ones buried within the forums I read rather than have every deal blogged and killed the next day.

This is going to be as personal a debate as 'should kids be allowed in first class', but this is my opinion and I believe it is a fair and balanced one.

 

[MaxLaughton]

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

^^^ Great post.

 

[j0eshmo85]

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

Awesome thread, found a bunch of information of here and discovering much more as I play with this.

 

[burmans]

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

Do you think it's 'fairer' if everyone knows about it but they only have 8 hours to use it before its corrected?

I think the idea that the bloggers are doing this out of "fairness" is pretty laughable. While I think all deals will eventually get closed down, I think those who invest the time in discovering these things have a right to get peeved when someone who does takes their work and uses it for their own benefit.

As for the argument that it will eventually get out anyway, equally pathetic. So it would be alright to loot in a disaster because someone else will, pretty morally bankrupt logic IMO. Yes its going to get out, but that doesn't make it all right to be the first.

 

[dalereardon]

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

Hi,

I see the post above re the marginally lower price of award economy tickets.

You will find that by far the best value is in business or first class award tickets. By the time you pay taxes there is only so much you can save with economy awards. Pay that little bit more and enjoy the luxury of business seats.

Dale.

 

[seritonin]

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

I think the idea that the bloggers are doing this out of "fairness" is pretty laughable. While I think all deals will eventually get closed down, I think those who invest the time in discovering these things have a right to get peeved when someone who does takes their work and uses it for their own benefit.

As for the argument that it will eventually get out anyway, equally pathetic. So it would be alright to loot in a disaster because someone else will, pretty morally bankrupt logic IMO. Yes its going to get out, but that doesn't make it all right to be the first.

I'm in no way suggesting that the bloggers are doing it out of fairness, it's more about narcissism and self promoting for the most part, but hey they are running a business. Some of them did however provide wealth of info for beginners like I was years ago when I was still green and I thank them for that. Most of this so called 'deals' can be found few with few hours research on routing on EF and AN. that's how I found USDM GUM months before it was talked about on here. I get the fact that it should be kept confined to certain forum and spreadsheet since people put a lot of effort on it but I'm pretty sure a lot of bloggers read this for their research. There is no point getting pissed off about something that you cannot control.I'm more interested in finding new way of using my miles efficiently when I plan to travel.

 

[anat0l]

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

I'm in no way suggesting that the bloggers are doing it out of fairness, it's more about narcissism and self promoting for the most part, but hey they are running a business. Some of them did however provide wealth of info for beginners like I was years ago when I was still green and I thank them for that. Most of this so called 'deals' can be found few with few hours research on routing on EF and AN. that's how I found USDM GUM months before it was talked about on here. I get the fact that it should be kept confined to certain forum and spreadsheet since people put a lot of effort on it but I'm pretty sure a lot of bloggers read this for their research. There is no point getting pissed off about something that you cannot control.I'm more interested in finding new way of using my miles efficiently when I plan to travel.

I should probably add that I didn't express any emotion either way in my post. But what I said pretty much is true: once it is blogged (on a popular one, anyway; or any mass publishing technique), it's likely to accelerate the likelihood it will get plugged. Notwithstanding the long time ennui of the technique(s) being out there, and the possible lackadaisical and incompetent approach of the said frequent flyer programme, it makes sense to just hurry up if you've ever thought about making a redemption.

Then again, that "hurry up" advice really applies almost all the time in this FF game (not just LM, all the time).

And of course, our 'little' forum doesn't get mentioned very often, especially in the international scene, so a little bit of fame (infamy?) there.

I do take some issue at bloggers republishing material which is primarily for self-gain, especially when there is no attribution, or worse, implied or explicit misrepresentation of who found the technique (including, the blogger themselves). There are people who do share this kind of info with no expectation of reward of any kind, except perhaps a hearty "thank you". These bloggers - like the (un)popular media - probably also have an argument that it's a story to be told, not necessarily a secret that was undisclosed. We see that everyday on the daily rags - do you think for once anyone considers the ramifications of publishing anything? No, it is a story, and as long as it isn't illegal it can be morally or socially reprehensible.

Anyway, in summary, nothing may happen, but with further exposure maybe some things will get plugged. So depending on how dependent or willing you were to cash in on a deal, it's probably time to have a serious think. If not, maybe nothing will happen, or you'll have to consider another way. That's the game......

 

[Aussie_flyer]

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

This thread has been so ridiculously open about many of the tricks it is no wonder a blogger picked it up. It was not only the one usual suspect doing it either