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Avianca is offering a 125% bonus when you transfer your LifeMiles to another account. Although there are fees to transfer miles, the current promotion offers a cheap way increase your LifeMiles balance—as long as you already have miles in your account. This deal is valid through April 3, 2019, so you’ll need to act quickly.
Key Terms
- The promotion is valid for transfers through April 3, 2019, 11:59 pm GMT
- Receive a 125% bonus when you transfer LifeMiles from one account to another
- Transferring miles incurs a charge of $15 per 1,000 miles transferred
- You can transfer a maximum of 75,000 miles per year
- Miles can be transferred to any other LifeMiles account
Taking full advantage of the promotion and transferring 75,000 miles, you will end up with 168,750 miles (75,000 miles transferred + 93,750 LifeMiles Bonus). Transfers cost $15 per 1,000 miles transferred, so the total cost of the transfers would be $1,125.
This means that you are effectively purchasing 93,750 LifeMiles for $1,125. Crunching the numbers, this works out at 1.2 cents per mile, which is a stunning value and compares favorably with some of the best promotions we have seen from Avianca LifeMiles.
Unless you're feeling incredibly generous, the idea here is to transfer miles to an account belonging to a close friend or family member. Since Avianca lets you redeem awards for anyone, moving miles from one account to another shouldn't limit your options for who can travel on an award ticket.
How Good is This Deal?
If you have a LifeMiles balance to transfer, this promotion can produce outstanding value. Remember LifeMiles has various sweet spots, especially on partner awards. At a price of 1.2 cents per mile, sweet spots with the promotion include:
- $720 — 60,000 miles for business-class flights from the eastern U.S. to Europe Zone 1 (includes the UK)
- $1,044 — 87,000 miles for first-class flights from the eastern U.S. the to Europe
- $900 — 75,000 miles for business-class flights from the eastern U.S. to North Asia (including China and Hong Kong)
- $1,080 — 90,000 miles for first-class flights from the eastern U.S. to North Asia (including China and Hong Kong)
This is excellent value, especially if you can use your miles to book a Lufthansa first-class award from the U.S. to Europe. Effectively paying $1,044 for a first-class ticket on Lufthansa is simply unbeatable. The ticket would normally set you back at least 5 or 6 times the price.
What If I Don't Have Any LifeMiles?
If you don't already have a significant Avianca LifeMiles balance, you'll need to acquire miles before you can share them. Although Avianca frequently sells miles at a big discount, the current buy-miles offer is the standard version. To buy 75,000 miles, you'd spend around $2,475.00 which comes out to a terrible 3.3 cents per mile.
If you combine that cost with the math for sharing miles, buying 75,000 and then sharing them with the current promo comes out to a far less impressive 2.13 cents per mile. The total cost for generating 168,750 miles starting with an empty LifeMiles account would be $3,600: $2,475 to buy and $1,125 to share. If you find yourself without miles to share, you'll want to pass on this promo.
The final option would be to consider transferring points from American Express, Citibank, or Capital One. This option is certainly worth considering if you have a substantial balance with one of these rewards programs, but you should only do so with a specific award in mind. Since transfers are non-reversible, you'll give up lots of alternative options when you convert them into LifeMiles.
Marriott Bonvoy points also transfer to Avianca, but those transfers may take 24 hours or more to post to your LifeMiles account, so it may not be worth the risk of missing the April 3rd deadline.
Our Take
If you have a LifeMiles balance, and you are looking for a specific redemption then this promotion is a no-brainer; it does not get any better than buying LifeMiles at 1.2 cents apiece. However, we never recommend buying miles speculatively no matter how good the deal is.
Since this strategy requires transferring miles to another account, we should reiterate that (unless you're sharing miles as a gift) you want to transfer the miles to a trusted friend, family member or a LifeMiles account you control.
Source: One Mile At A Time
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Does anyone know if I can send miles from account A to B get the bonus then to C get the bonus and then back to A?
You can go from a to b and then b to a. no need to introduce c. Just did it and they are instant. They multiply quickly this way. Do it in any increment of 4k miles so you don’t end up with an even amount of X thousand miles and there will be no leftover miles in B when you transfer back. For example 4k from A means 9k in B, 9K in b is 20,250 back in A after bonus
Thank you.
I am not interested in buying any airline’s miles. I am using the last of my miles as I have been frustrated trying to redeem miles for business saver awards.
Can you do ping-pong transfers between 2 accounts?
e.g.) A to B, then again from B to A.
Yes. I did it.
Not sure if we’ll see more of these, but definitely a good reason to keep a few thousand miles in your account, to start the “share miles” merry-go-round. (and to have an active account in your partner’s name)
Nice for those with a balance already.
this is one of the cheapest way to extend lifemile point ever since lifemile changed its policy for points to expire in 12 months.
Find someone and both of you do it at the same time.
Yikes, such a short expiration window.
This might be good if you already earned miles somewhat easily in your account but if you are transferring miles form TY/MR and then use this to multiply, the end result ends up being the same as buying the miles straight up thru club miles subscription or one of the promos, i.e about 1.26 to 1.28 c per mile
Bonuses are always a plus if you need the miles or points.
I’m making the switch today.
Check to make sure that there’s availability first!
Avianca is the biggest miles seller of all. Plenty of cheap options for purchasing miles.
Thanks for the heads up about purchasing via Avianca!
I think this is by far the best deal for getting AV miles. It can usually be achieved at 1.5cpm
I don’t have any Lifemiles at this time but this would certainly be a good idea for someone who does and has a premium cabin redemption in mind. Thanks
Once you think you’re out they suck you back in…. looks like time to acquire some cheap points and plan a trip
Transfer to get a payout. Seems legit
This can be a good value if you have a trip ready to book.
“$1,080 — 90,000 miles for first-class flights from the eastern U.S. to North Asia (including China and Hong Kong)”
That’s a tempting value proposition.
I assume both of these are pretty small programs, but it’s not a bad deal if you use them!
I like Avianca’s award program, but when I had things go wrong with a flight, their customer service was a disaster for what should have been a simple fix.
Wish it was for a longer time period
Very good offer.
Anyway, it was better you could buy the miles instead of transfer them to another account.
As a European resident, how hard is it to book LH 1st class with Avianca miles? And does it come with the normal insane fees that LH has?
Missed the deadline. I need to check this blog more often!
I dont trust avianca anymore, avianca in Brasil is broken and maybe his brother too
Oops just missed the deal. Looking forward to the 145% bonus next time!