{"id":120614,"date":"2023-08-17T18:00:47","date_gmt":"2023-08-17T18:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/?p=120614"},"modified":"2026-04-08T13:47:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T13:47:18","slug":"book-awards-by-email-eliminated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/news\/avianca-lifemiles\/book-awards-by-email-eliminated\/","title":{"rendered":"Avianca LifeMiles Eliminates Manual Bookings by Email"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today in &#8220;news we don't like,&#8221; it appears that <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"\/airlines\/avianca-lifemiles\/avianca-lifemiles-sweet-spots\/\" rel=\"noopener\">Avianca LifeMiles<\/a> has done away with its specialty customer support email. While this was a niche option \u2014 and one you may not have used in the past \u2014 it's a big loss for those who relied on email to complete complicated bookings and manage other processes. Let's take a look.<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"Avianca_LifeMiles_Booking_Email\">Avianca LifeMiles Booking Email<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Did you know that Avianca had a customer support email? It did. Per this <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flyertalk.com\/forum\/avianca-lifemiles-amigo\/2126504-support-lifemiles-com-discontinued-other-options-help.html\" rel=\"noopener\">FlyerTalk thread<\/a>, this email allowed customers to complete a few different tasks, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Booking itineraries that didn't show up on the website.<\/li>\n<li>Requesting partner booking codes.<\/li>\n<li>Requesting refunds for changed or canceled flights.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, it looks like the customer support email is dead. A recent request for help returned this auto-reply:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" data-pm-slice=\"1 1 []\"><em>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.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>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 <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/helpcenter.lifemiles.com\/hc\/en-us\" rel=\"noopener\" data-inline-card=\"\" data-card-data=\"\">https:\/\/helpcenter.lifemiles.com\/hc\/en-us<\/a> and we will work on it from there.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>Thank you,<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><em><strong>LifeMiles Team<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2><span id=\"Alternatives_to_the_Booking_Email\">Alternatives to the Booking Email<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_120625\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img data-aspectratio=\"750\/332\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-120625 lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Avianca-Lifemiles-customer-support-page-300x133.png\" alt=\"Avianca LifeMiles customer support page\" width=\"750\" height=\"332\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Avianca-Lifemiles-customer-support-page-300x133.png 300w, https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Avianca-Lifemiles-customer-support-page-1024x454.png 1024w, https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Avianca-Lifemiles-customer-support-page-768x340.png 768w, https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Avianca-Lifemiles-customer-support-page-1536x680.png 1536w, https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Avianca-Lifemiles-customer-support-page-2048x907.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\" \/><center><em>Credit: Avianca LifeMiles<\/em><\/enter><\/figure>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_120626\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img data-aspectratio=\"750\/340\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-120626 lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Avianca-Lifemiles-ticket-page-300x136.png\" alt=\"Avianca LifeMiles ticket page\" width=\"750\" height=\"340\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Avianca-Lifemiles-ticket-page-300x136.png 300w, https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Avianca-Lifemiles-ticket-page-1024x465.png 1024w, https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Avianca-Lifemiles-ticket-page-768x349.png 768w, https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Avianca-Lifemiles-ticket-page-1536x697.png 1536w, https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Avianca-Lifemiles-ticket-page.png 1564w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\" \/><center><em>Credit: Avianca LifeMiles<\/em><\/enter><\/figure>\n<p>Instead, you can try contacting Avianca by phone at: <strong>1 (800)-284-2622<\/strong> and <strong>selecting option 3<\/strong>. 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.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u2014 especially when the notoriously poor Avianca site missed out on flight availability.<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"Final_Thoughts\">Final Thoughts<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<div id=\"ftoc\"><div id=\"toc_container\" class=\"toc_light_blue no_bullets\"><p class=\"toc_title\">Page Contents<\/p><ul class=\"toc_list\"><li><a href=\"#Avianca_LifeMiles_Booking_Email\">Avianca LifeMiles Booking Email<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#Alternatives_to_the_Booking_Email\">Alternatives to the Booking Email<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#Final_Thoughts\">Final Thoughts<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Avianca LifeMiles has done away with its customer support email, which could be used to complete manual bookings, request refunds for flight cancellations or changes, and find out information about partner award bookings. It might not affect everyone, but it&#8217;s worth knowing about.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":115092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[12069],"tags":[12775],"coauthors":[36395],"class_list":["post-120614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-avianca-lifemiles"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/75"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120614"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":255930,"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120614\/revisions\/255930"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120614"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=120614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}