Avianca LifeMiles – Bookings and Discussion

[AviatorPJ]

At any rate, BR's TPE-BNE flight is a daytime flight so while not great (and not in the spirit of AFF), it shouldn't be too awful doing it in Y if that's all Lifemiles offers up (although check QF for CI availability too).

Also consider BR or CI premium economy on the day flight TPE BNE.

 

[goldenhorn]

Haha, yes. Corrected now.

MELso, agree BR is excellent, but the problem is availability.

I wouldn’t be proactively buying miles in LM to secure BR, when there’s other programs for the same cost available. Where you can also get BR, if it’s available.

Yeah, I do love how easy Aeroplan is to find and book flights. It's definitely my preferred program. I might just hold off and wait a bit longer and see if there's another Aeroplan promotion in the next few months.

 

[drron]

Well I am still sitting on a pile of LM points so I have now started to use them booking hotels. sometimes just not worth it but last night booked the Hyatt at BKK at nearly what most hotel points are worth.

 

[jgm]

I’d be buying miles in Aeroplan rather than LM. Same price when they’re on sale,but so many more options and easier to book aeroplan than LM.

Not the same price! LM are in $US, Aeroplan in $CA. With the current exchange rate LM are around 50c and AC around 41c.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Not the same price! LM are in $US, Aeroplan in $CA. With the current exchange rate LM are around 50c and AC around 41c.

Same (or close enough) for the total cost of the award I was meaning. Traditionally LM and Aeroplan points on sale have been about 2c each, in aussie dollars?

 

[Buzzard]

Same (or close enough) for the total cost of the award I was meaning. Traditionally LM and Aeroplan points on sale have been about 2c each, in aussie dollars?

Slightly OT, I've never bought Aeroplan points so will have to look into them. Do they expire like LM?

 

[goldenhorn]

Slightly OT, I've never bought Aeroplan points so will have to look into them. Do they expire like LM?

Aeroplan points will expire if there is no qualifying activity in your account for a period of 18 months. Activity includes earning, redeeming, earning, transfer into your account (from hotel or other loyalty program) or make a purchase in the shopping portal.

 

[Notyourbag]

Aeroplan points will expire if there is no qualifying activity in your account for a period of 18 months. Activity includes earning, redeeming, earning, transfer into your account (from hotel or other loyalty program) or make a purchase in the shopping portal.

I believe there is a temporary pause on expiring miles ( I went to check my balance and saw a note on their website saying this!)

 

[jgm]

Same (or close enough) for the total cost of the award I was meaning. Traditionally LM and Aeroplan points on sale have been about 2c each, in aussie dollars?

My maths was out by a magnitude - should have been 5c and 4.1c This only brings them into comparison if LM is at 150% bonus and AC is at 100% ( which does happen occasionally). The big advantage of Aeroplan is the additional carriers outside of *A. Added to this now that you no longer have the screen shot method for LM is the creative routing available with Aeroplan. e.g I have a flight YYC-FRA-SIN-BNE-MEL all in J with 3 different carriers (4Y,SQ,VA) on the one ticket. I think it was 120K points (I paid 96K & CA$1200), but it would cost 150000 LM points if you could get a direct YVR-Australia flight or around 220k for my routing, and each leg most likely on a separate ticket.

I'm still using LM awards but once they're exhausted I won't buy any more unless they make some massive changes. My skiing trip in January next year is MEL-DEL, 1 day layover, DEL-YVR with AI using LM points and YVR-YYC with AC and Aeroplan points. I had to spend the extra day in Delhi, as there is only an hour between the 2 AI flights and I could only get them on separate tickets (and AI won't through check baggage on separate tickets)

 

[zsw]

I swore I'd never use LM again, but I'm really concerned about the lack of availability on Velocity to get back from Japan next October. In fact, reward flights in and out of Japan seem to be in short supply these days. I used Aeroplan to get there BNE-SIN-KIX.

I see there's a LifeMiles promotion at the moment, and it looks like I can get KIX-TPE 2X J on Eva Air for about US$560. Haven't flown Eva before but would love to try it.

My only concern is I need to get back to BNE and it seems there's limited options from TPE. And I definitely don't want to spend almost 9 hours in economy.

Sitting on the fence and not sure which way to go.

BR does very frequently open up spare J seats at 5 - 7 days prior to the flight. I used to have this marked always at 5 days but got surprised last month when one popped up at 7 days. Last year I did get a BNE - TPE J that appeared ~4 days out.

Just a peculiar note: Lifemiles won't let you change a booking from economy to business if it is on the same flight. To change from economy to business I needed to make a new booking then cancel the economy booking.