Hot on the heels of the announcement of the US Airways Buy Dividend Miles
promotion, Avianca LifeMiles has also brought back their 100% bonus on buying miles promotion.
The offer runs until May 30 and basically doubles any amount you buy up to
75,000 miles for a total of 150,000 miles (or 1.5 cents per mile).
Remember you are only allowed to buy up to 150,000 miles in a calendar
year including any bonuses. Also you have to have been an Avianca LifeMiles member as of May 5 to take part. (HT: One Mile at a Time)
Avianca is now a member of the Star Alliance. So while before I
used to tout this offer as a way to get Lufthansa business class from
North America to Europe for $1800, you can now use the miles on any Star
Alliance airline. The program also offers one way rewards at exactly
half the round trip cost and does not charge fuel surcharges on award
tickets.
With business class tickets to Europe going for 105,000 miles and Asia
for 125 – 130,000 miles you can travel ‘luxuriously’ for a lot less with
this
deal. What used to be a decent feature of LifeMiles is their Cash + Part
Points option but that was devalued nearly a year ago. This option
only requires that you have 40% of the points for a reward (so buy 40%
during this 100% bonus period) and then you can buy the rest of the
miles (the other 60%) at about 1.56 cents per mile (used to be 1.25
cents!).
Some things to consider with the buy miles option before you pull
the trigger is that their call center tends to be on the less helpful
side so you are better off booking award tickets online which also means
you are limited to the powers of that source, mixed class awards are
not allowed unless you book each award ticket as separate one way
flights and they have devalued the program without notice in the past so
only buy these miles if you think you will use them in the next short
while
For complete details on the Avianca TACA LifeMiles 100% Bonus or to buy the miles please see here