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New cardmembers can earn up to 40,000 LifeMiles with the current offers on the Avianca LifeMiles credit cards from Banco Popular. Even if you have no intention of flying Avianca, LifeMiles can still be a great value for booking award flights on 27 Star Alliance carriers like United, Singapore Airlines, ANA, Thai Airways, and Lufthansa. And, they don’t impose fuel surcharges on award tickets!
What Makes Avianca LifeMiles Such an Attractive Rewards Program?
- Avianca is a member of Star Alliance, so you can book awards across the entire Star Alliance network.
- Award prices are competitive with other Star Alliance programs and there are a multitude of sweet spots, including:
- U.S.-Europe in business for 63K miles and first for 87K miles
- U.S.-North Asia in business for 90K miles
- Hawaii-Australia/NZ in business for 60K miles
- Domestic hops within select U.S. zones for as little as 7,500 miles in economy
- LifeMiles charges no close-in booking fees and no fuel surcharges on award tickets (a huge money saver)
- Book one-way awards at half the cost of a round trip
- Most awards can be found and booked online
- You can book awards with as few as 40% of the required miles in your account, and purchase the remaining miles to needed to redeem your award flight for as cheap as 1.5¢ per mile
Comparing Avianca LifeMiles Credit Cards
Both cards provide a bundle of money-saving perks if you fly Avianca, but the Avianca Vuela Visa® Card offers some additional perks you won't receive if you only hold the Avianca Vida Visa® Card:
- A free additional piece of baggage for travel between the United States and Central America
- 50% discount on an award ticket redeemed for travel to Central America or Colombia from the United States after $12,000 spent each year
- An additional 50% discount on an award ticket redeemed for travel to Central America or Colombia from the United States after $24,000 spent each year
Other Methods of Collecting LifeMiles
One of the huge advantages LifeMiles has over other Star Alliance programs is how easy it is to collect miles. In addition to the Avianca co-brand cards, you can transfer points from the Capital One, American Express, and Citi ThankYou Rewards programs. Each of these points currencies has been known to offer limited-time transfer bonuses that can add an extra 15-25% to the number of LifeMiles you receive.
LifeMiles also frequently offers bonuses on purchased miles, with prices dropping as low as 1.35¢ per mile when purchased in bulk, allowing you to stockpile a sizeable balance of miles. Pair that with some of the LifeMiles Star Alliance deals we’ve seen in the recent past, and you can score some exceptionally cheap business- and first-class awards.
Best Ways to Redeem Avianca LifeMiles
Compared to the majority of Star Alliance programs, Avianca has a ton of sweet spots that offer top value for your miles. A few of our favorites include:
- 87,000-mile first class U.S. to Europe
- 63,000-mile business class U.S. to Europe
- 40,000-mile business class South Asia to Australia, New Zealand, and Oceania
- 40,000-mile economy U.S. to Australia, New Zealand, and Oceania
- 75,000-mile business class U.S. to North Asia
- 25,000-mile business class Transcontinental U.S.
Why Not Focus on Earning United Miles?
While Avianca award prices are often similar to what you’ll pay with United MileagePlus, LifeMiles opens up the ability to earn across a whole range of card issuers including Amex, Citi, and Capital One. You can easily transfer those points into your LifeMiles account to combine with the miles you've earned from the Avianca Vuela Visa® Card and Avianca Vida Visa® Card. If you choose to accumulate United miles for Star Alliance travel, you’re stuck with Chase, since they are the exclusive issuer of the United co-brand and Ultimate Rewards earning cards.
Another area where Avianca LifeMiles has an edge over United MileagePlus is the lack of close-in booking fees. LifeMiles is a top choice for last-minute award flights since they don't incur extra costs. With MileagePlus, any booking made less than 21 days before departure would cost you $75 per ticket if you don’t hold elite status with United. Lastly, you can take advantage of seasonal Avianca award sales, further dropping the cost of some of our favorite award flights!
Final Thoughts
New cardmembers can earn up to 40,000 LifeMiles with the current offers on the Avianca Visa cards from Banco Popular. Don’t think you’ll be flying Avianca any time soon? No problem! You can redeem LifeMiles on Star Alliance carriers all over the globe, and you won’t pay additional fuel surcharges or close-in booking fees when booking last-minute getaways.
The comments on this page are not provided, reviewed, or otherwise approved by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
This card seems to be a good offer. I Like Avianca, but I don’t know how long is the process to obtain the card. Waiting for more comments about it. Thanks.
This is a very interesting program and it sounds like it would be worthwhile learning more, especially when I have more flexibility in my schedule to take advantage of sweet spots.
Another reason to focus on other star alliance carriers besides United is that they seem they will follow Delta and adopt variable pricing soon on awards.
The only problem with LM is their award booking system, with my limited spanish, it doesnt make it easy to book via the telephone.
Has anyone been approved for this card without going through the “arduous” process?
Be forewarned: this is the most arduous card approval process I’ve ever gone through. I forget all the financial documents they requested, but it was far more than any other card issuer I know. If I recall correctly, their deadlines for receipt were fairly tight as well. After all that, I was rejected. So best of luck to those who apply.
Interesting. Good to know. I wonder why such the hassle for this particular card.
Agree this card asked for so much more financial info than any other. So much so I decided NOT to continue the process. Much to my surprise the card came in the mail a few weeks later.
I met the spend for the sign up bonus and put it in a drawer. I’ll cancel the card at renewal time unless I get a decent retention offer.
Thanks for the heads up. I guess we need to add the rigor of the approval process into evaluating offers now as well.
It’s nice to see Avianca is a member of Star Alliance. I’ve had some very good experiences flying with them, though the last time it seemed they were off their game.
You can also transfer Marriott Bonvoy points to Avianca , with a 15,000 point bonus (equal to 5,000 miles at 3:1) for every 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points transferred. This may not be the best use of Bonvoy points or the cheapest way to acquire Avianca points, but it’s another option.