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If you act today (June 2, 2016), you can get a 135% bonus on the purchase of Avianca LifeMiles.
You have to register for an extra 10% bonus on top of the automatic 125% bonus by entering your LifeMiles number here. Then tomorrow, when you get a confirmation email, you follow the instructions to purchase miles.
You have to act today because the deal ends tomorrow, and it can take a day to be registered.
You can buy up to 150,000 LifeMiles during the sale and get up to 202,500 bonus miles.
LifeMiles cost 3.3 cents each, so with a 135% bonus, you get the miles for 1.40 cents each.
The cheapest I’ve ever seen LifeMiles was 1.32 cents each.
When to Buy (Math)
Here are the prices for each number of miles (including automatic bonus and 10% extra bonus) that you can purchase.
- 4,200 to 105,000 miles for 1.57 cents each
- 114,750 to 225,000 miles for 1.47 cents each
- 237,350 to 352,500 miles for 1.40 cents each
I value LifeMiles at 1.5 cents per mile at the moment. Buying them for 1.40 cents per mile is not enough of an inducement for me because I don’t have an immediate use for them, and miles get devalued all the time. I don’t want to shell out $3,000+ on such an uncertain investment.
Many people should have a similar view of this sale and buy zero miles. As with most mile sales, the main way it make sense to buy miles at these prices is if you have an immediate high value use for them.
Possible Immediate High Value Uses
There are a ton of deals on the LifeMiles award chart, which allows one way redemptions with no fuel surcharges on all 27 Star Alliance partners, so an immediate high value use is very possible.
Do not just use the award chart, though. Make sure you can book what you want to book on lifemiles.com. You can do an award search with zero miles in your account. The reason for this extra step is that if you can’t book your award online, LifeMiles call centers are nearly useless.
Cuba
Americans can book awards to Cuba with LifeMiles. For instance, here is a search from Washington-Dulles to Havana, Cuba. It costs 17,500 LifeMiles + $31.65 or 7,500 miles + $181.65.
Buying miles during the award booking often costs 1.5 cents per mile as in this case.
If you bought all the miles for a one way award to Cuba during the current sale, you’d pay:
- $297: 18,900 miles at 1.57 cents each
- $31.65: taxes and fees
- $328.65 total, unbeatable for a one way award to Cuba
Europe in Business Class
The United States to Europe is 63,000 miles each way in Business Class. The Star Alliance has great award space.
You could buy 27,300 miles (13,000 + bonus) for $429 and buy the last 36,000 miles for $540 at the time of booking. That would get you a one way in Business Class for about $1,000 total after taxes.
See How to Consistently Buy Business Class Tickets to Europe for about $1,000 and Anatomy of an Award: Using LifeMiles to Buy Business Class Ticket Between Europe and USA for $1,040 for full details on these awards.
There are similar deals all over the world and in all cabins through this sale, too many to list here. Investigate where you want to go on the award chart and then make sure you can book the award you want. If the math works out, buy LifeMiles.
Buy LifeMiles with These Credit Cards
LifeMiles purchases are processed directly by Avianca. That’s great news!
It means you can buy them with your Citi Prestige® Card, and its $250 Air Travel Credit will refund you the first $250 of the purchase price of the miles (plus you’ll earn 4x ThankYou Points on the first $250 of the miles purchase.)
It means you can purchase LifeMiles with your Barclaycard Arrival Plus™ World Elite MasterCard®, then use your Arrival miles for an offsetting statement credit.
Bottom Line
If you act today (June 2, 2016), you can get a 135% bonus on the purchase of Avianca LifeMiles.
You can buy up to 352,500 Avianca LifeMiles for 1.40 cents each. That’s too high to buy speculatively, but there are a lot of immediate awards you can book where that price offers great value.
The LifeMiles sales are now processed by Avianca itself, so you can get category bonuses on cards that bonus airline or travel purchases like my latest card, the Citi Prestige® Card which offers 3x on purchases from airlines and a $250 Air Travel Credit, or you can use your Barclaycard Arrival Plus™ World Elite MasterCard® to get Avianca miles for zero cash.
Just getting started in the world of points and miles? The Chase Sapphire Preferred is the best card for you to start with.
With a bonus of 60,000 points after $4,000 spend in the first 3 months, 5x points on travel booked through the Chase Travel Portal and 3x points on restaurants, streaming services, and online groceries (excluding Target, Walmart, and wholesale clubs), this card truly cannot be beat for getting started!
Editorial Disclaimer: The editorial content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuers. Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of the credit card issuers, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the credit card issuers.
The comments section below is not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser’s responsibility to ensure all questions are answered.
Good discussion! Whether the Cuba deal is unbeatable probably depends on how you interpret it and where you live. People in the DFW or MIA markets could get to Cuba for 7,500 Avios (to Cancun) plus a little over $100 cash ticket to Havana on Interjet. To me that would be a better deal overall, but it does depend on how much you value Avios (if you have them), how much you value getting one air ticket rather than two, and where you live – other parts of the US would have a higher Avios cost. I fully agree with the idea of having a high value use for the miles readily in mind before making a purchase.
I notice you rarely recommend buying miles when on sale because it’s “speculative” but then push for people to sign up for 3 cards that comes to 150k miles after spending x dollars. Why is one speculative and not the other?
I always recommend people start from the trip goal before getting miles (via purchase or new cards.) The difference between the two activities is that buying has thousands of dollars of cash outlay, so you should be really careful before buying (ie have an immediate high value use for the miles.) You should probably have a nearly immediate high value use for credit card sign up bonuses too, since miles always devalue, but if you don’t, at least you aren’t out thousands of dollars.