Avianca is known for its frequent promotions offered for buying miles and they’re at it once again. Up until November 27, 2017, you can purchase Avianca LifeMiles while taking advantage of a 145% bonus. This means you can purchase these miles at a rate of 1.35 cents per mile (you can buy up to 200,000 miles without factoring in the bonus).
This is a great deal considering that the promotion is not tiered. Often when purchasing miles during a promotion period, you don’t get the best promotional bonus rate unless you purchase a significant amount of miles from the top tier of the promotion. But in this case, all purchases will result in a 145% bonus making this an attractive offer.
The Avianca LifeMiles program is part of the Star Alliance so you’ll be able to use your miles to book flights on partners, such as United, Lufthansa, Singapore and others. These award chart for the LifeMiles program is decent but the lack of surcharges on awards helps the program stand out a little more. As I discuss in the linked article below, you can find some good sweet spots in this program, such as flying business class from North America to Brazil.
Don’t forget that Avianca was just added as a partner to the Citi ThankYou program so you now have even more opportunities to build up a mileage balance.
I would probably only go for this promotion if I had a specific redemption in mind simply because these promotions come around so often. This might be one of the better promotions, but I think you can count on seeing another solid promotion in due time, so don’t let the “pressure” of jumping on an offer dictate your decision here.
At the same time, if you were thinking about paying cash for a flight, it could make sense to make a bulk purchase of Avianca miles and save your cash. As MMS points out you could pay $858 for 63,000 miles which could cover a business class flight to Europe that would normally run over $3,000.
Anytime you see a high promotional rate, you should always consider this route because it’s not uncommon to be able to pay an economy rate for a business class fare by purchasing miles during a promotion (especially if you can stack promotions).
Terms and conditions
Here are some of the key terms and conditions:
- The bonus for this promotion is 2×1 + 45% additional miles. The bonus is calculated based on the miles purchased per individual transaction without taking into account the 2×1 bonus.
- Promotion applies exclusively for members who have received this email directly from LifeMiles.
- The miles must be purchased in multiples of 1,000.
- The minimum miles to purchase per transaction is 1,000 LifeMiles.
- The maximum miles to purchase per transaction during this promotion to receive the bonus showed above is 200,000 LifeMiles if the Member has not purchased miles in 2017 or 200,000 LifeMiles minus the miles previously purchased by the Member in 2017.
- The Member may purchase miles outside of the limits showed above but in such case the transactions will be processed but no bonuses will be granted.
- Each package of 1,000 LifeMiles costs USD $33.00 without applicable taxes and USD $40.26* including applicable taxes according to correspondence country registered in the LifeMiles database**
- This promotion applies for miles purchases made between November 20th and November 27th, 2017 (between 00.00-23.59 GMT -6, El Salvador).
Daniel Gillaspia is the Founder of UponArriving.com and the credit card app, WalletFlo. He is a former attorney turned travel expert covering destinations along with TSA, airline, and hotel policies. Since 2014, his content has been featured in publications such as National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, and CNBC. Read my bio.
