Up to 48% Star Alliance Asia Redemptions Using Cheap Avianca LifeMiles

by Gary Leff

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Star Alliance member Avianca LifeMiles has Star Alliance Asia awards on sale. There are discounts up to 48% — with US-Asia awards in business and first class up to 20% off on designated routes.

This discount is available for bookings made by September 18 though you can travel any time in the future through end of schedule.

That’s super useful because LifeMiles frequently sells miles cheap, and because they are also a Citibank Thank You Rewards transfer partner.

  • Citi ThankYou® Premier Card has a best-ever offer of 60,000 points after $4000 in purchases on the card within your first 3 months of account opening. It has a $0 annual fee the first year, $95 thereafter. It earns 3 points on travel (including gas), 2 points on dining and entertainment, 1 point on other purchases. [Offer expired]

  • LifeMiles is running a purchase miles bonus up to 125%, and One Mile at a Time an extra 15% bonus on top — you have to register for that bonus and wait 24 hours before making your purchase.

    Register by September 17, purchase by September 18, and you can buy miles for as little as 1.375 cents apiece.

Here are the US – Asia routes that are discounted and how LifeMiles describes the discounts: (.pdf)

Los Angeles – Seoul and New York JFK – Seoul are offered non-stop on Asiana which generally has amazing award availability in premium cabins. Here’s a snapshot from a week ago:

Booking Asiana first class for 72,000 miles means paying less than the normal price for first class. It’s amazing.

Non-stop award space to Beijing on Air China is fantastic, especially from the West Coast as well.

Key terms and conditions:

  • The redemption of miles for air tickets is valid only through LifeMiles.com and the Avianca Call Center.
  • Call Center and LifeMiles.com only accept international credit cards as a form of payment.
    Applicable taxes are not included and must be paid when making the redemption.
  • A service fee per ticket is charged for redemptions made on Avianca Call Centers LifeMiles.com and must be paid at the time of the redemption. Redemption fee from $ 25 up to $ 80 + taxes, depending on the route redeemed, plus a late redemption fee of $ 40 + taxes also applies, if the ticket redemption is made 14 or less days prior to departure.
  • Redemption dates: between August 30th and September 18th, 2018.
  • Seats are limited, and may not be available on all flights and/or dates. Subject to availability of class X, class O and class I.
  • Valid only for flights on STAR ALLIANCE airlines.
  • The millage showed on the table is for one way trips.
  • Date changes are permitted with the respective service charge.

(HT: One Mile at a Time)

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. You are checking availability on UA search engine for a specific route during school year and hence the availability. LifeMiles, for our needs, there is zero availability but that’s also the case with UA and AS.

    Unless you want to provide some help searching! 😉

  2. “Late redemption fee”? Is that a new Avianca/LifeMiles award ticket fee? I book most of my LifeMiles award tickets 1-2 days before travel, and I don’t recall getting hit by such a fee at this time a few months ago.

  5. Thinking the same as @GUWonder. Never seen any prior reference to Late redemption fee on LM. Maybe it applies to this promotion only. Certainly hope so, as LM is very heavy handed in fees it levies for things such as cancellations and date changes. Leaves the US legacy bloodsucking airlines in the shade!

  6. Is lifemiles a worthwhile program to keep miles in as a second to United?

    I have a JFK-UIO-LIM-JFK trip in C coming up and trying to decide whether to start another thing to keep track of or credit everything to UA.

    Are there any significant advantages? (Sweet spots, last minute booking, stopover/routing rules.)

Comments are closed.