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Today in “news we don't like,” it appears that Avianca LifeMiles has done away with its specialty customer support email. While this was a niche option — and one you may not have used in the past — it's a big loss for those who relied on email to complete complicated bookings and manage other processes. Let's take a look.
Avianca LifeMiles Booking Email
Did you know that Avianca had a customer support email? It did. Per this FlyerTalk thread, this email allowed customers to complete a few different tasks, including:
- Booking itineraries that didn't show up on the website.
- Requesting partner booking codes.
- Requesting refunds for changed or canceled flights.
Anyone who's tried to contact Avianca by phone before knows how painful it is to find the correct department to complete your request. Never mind the wait times involved.
The email was a way around that. Most importantly, it allowed you to piece together itineraries that wouldn't appear on the website and have them booked manually. This could mean saving thousands of miles on your itineraries, as well as greater flexibility on the flights you'd be taking. LifeMiles' website is notorious for showing flight awards when searching one piece at a time but not showing the availability for the whole itinerary.
Unfortunately, it looks like the customer support email is dead. A recent request for help returned this auto-reply:
Thanks for contacting us. If your email is regarding a follow-up to a case we are already working on through this mailbox, we will reply to you as soon as we can.
If your email is for a new case request, we kindly ask you to open a new case with us at our help center on https://helpcenter.lifemiles.com/hc/en-us and we will work on it from there.
Thank you,
LifeMiles Team
Alternatives to the Booking Email
Following the link in the email response brings you to Avianca's help center page, which provides information on a variety of frequently asked questions.
There's also a location to submit a ticket for help, which would, presumably, offer the same options as the email. However, reports indicate that this isn't so and that receiving a response at all is unlikely.
Instead, you can try contacting Avianca by phone at: 1 (800)-284-2622 and selecting option 3. This has worked in the past for flight changes and refunds on cancellations. It also should allow you to retrieve confirmation numbers for partner flights.
However, it doesn't look like manual bookings by email are an option with LifeMiles anymore. According to the FlyerTalk thread, agents are only able to see the same flights that we can find online and cannot piece together itineraries. This is a huge loss for those who relied upon manual bookings — especially when the notoriously poor Avianca site missed out on flight availability.
Final Thoughts
There's no nicer way to say that this sucks. Although there may not have been a huge contingent of folks who relied on the email, its loss also means that award booking options with Avianca LifeMiles have just taken a nosedive. At least redemptions are still relatively cheap, and you can contact the phone number for much of the remaining information. Bring a book for the hold times.
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Thank you AwardWallet for the alert. Learned a long time ago to use only frequent flyer programs that either
1) English is the primary language of the airline behind the program (USA airlines, British, Qantas, Aer Lingus, Singapore, Air Canada, Air New Zealand, Virgin), or
2) The airline has an excellent website and strong call-in customer support options in English (e.g Air France/KLM, Qatar).
While there are other carriers I have not tried yet, those 2 criteria exclude Avianca, Turkish, and Aeromexico.
That said the evolution of Aeromexico’s program (according to AwardWallet posts) is leading me to possibly consider their program.
And I have had enough frustration with Air Canada’s phone wait times that I am considering restricting Aeroplan bookings to itineraries I absolutely positively KNOW I will not change for any reason, which is a tough tough criteria to make work with my life.