UPDATE: If you access the offer via One Mile at a Time you can get the 200% right from the lowest mileage purchase level of only 1,000 miles! This means you can buy just the amount of miles you need (such as 50,000 as in the example below) for an award ticket.
LifeMiles has long been famous for their buy miles bonuses as being
some of the best in the business. Well today they have gone beyond what
made them famous with their latest offer that came out today. From now
until September 25 they are offering up to a 200% bonus when you buy LifeMiles.
That’s right 200% or Triple Miles in total. This is the biggest and
best offer they have ever run and it’s not even exclusive to select
bloggers – this one is for everyone. Now the airline associated with
LifeMiles is Avianca and the latter is in bankruptcy protection right
now. That being said the two are separate companies and LifeMiles isn’t
in bankruptcy protection but you could imagine that if Avianca went
under it would adversely affect LifeMiles just like JetPrivilege (now
InterMiles) was when Jet Airways folded. The good news is Avianca has
received several hundred million dollars in loans so the hope is the
airline will survive. The program itself also placed this line in the
email announcing the sale today, which is definitely a bit suspect:
Even though we do not intent to change our award
rates, for the members who purchase this promotion we will honor these
award tables until at least January 2021.
So while they do not intend to change their award charts right now
for them to mention this and actually state a date of January 2021 would
have me worried that the loyalty program is having some back room
discussions around their charts. I mean why else would you put that
line in the email? Anyways, now back to the offer, it is a tiered bonus
as follows:
If you buy at the 200% level (101,000 to 200,000) you are buying LifeMiles at an incredible 1.1 cents each.
Offer details:
Receive up to a 200% bonus when you buy LifeMiles. Buy miles here. Until Sep 25, 20
Buy 1,000 to 50,000 miles receive a 150% bonus
Buy 51, 000 to 100,000 miles receive a 175% bonus
Buy 101,000 to 200,000 miles receive a 200% bonus
And here’s how this buy miles offers can offer huge savings and provides a classic example of some great travel hacking by being able to buy a $2800 business class ticket for under $800.
Even though there isn’t much international travel happening right now you can still utilize this great Latin American offer to travel within Canada. How about a quick weekend getaway from Toronto to Vancouver – and not in economy class but business class on internationally configured aircraft with lie flat seats. This is for October 8 to 11. Here is the availability from LifeMiles (click to make larger)
And to buy the same flights on Air Canada:
Let’s do the math here. The redemption is 50,000 LifeMiles plus US40.05 in taxes and fees. You are buying the miles at 1.1 cents US each. That equates to US$550 for the miles and add in the fees for a grand total of US$590.05. Convert that to Canadian and you are looking at about $780. To buy the same ticket with cash on Air Canada is $2809.72. By taking the buy miles route with this bonus from LifeMiles you are saving over $2,000 on this flight alone! It’s like paying for an economy class ticket (Well the cheapest no frill price is $608 on those same flight) but being able to fly in a lie flat business class cabin in both directions!