Avianca "Lifemiles" - Questions and Discussion

[travelislife]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A

How can you tell if they are angled beds ? Are J seats in other *Alliance airlines not available to LM ? For instance Lufthansa, Austrian, or LOT ?

You can look up each airlines offering and routes on their own websites. Yes there are lot's of different airlines in *A, but out of a lot of Australian cities the options are mainly Thai and Singapore, but Singapore has a restriction in that it can only be booked 14 days out. Out of Melbourne and Brisbane on Thai you can at the moment expect flat beds in J. Going from BKK-Europe it will depend on the route you pick what is available.

 

[PlutekPlutek]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A

other star alliance seats are available, but out of Australia you're pretty limited to TG (or sq within 14 days of departure).

Air China is a good option, if you can combine it with LH etc.

it depends what the LM system is willing to show you. I would be checking a few sample itineraries to see if you can get the airlines you want.

So I checked seatguru, and Thai only has flat beds on the 777W and A380. Is the consensus that using LM on any other plane in J is not such great value for money ?

 

[PlutekPlutek]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A

You can look up each airlines offering and routes on their own websites. Yes there are lot's of different airlines in *A, but out of a lot of Australian cities the options are mainly Thai and Singapore, but Singapore has a restriction in that it can only be booked 14 days out. Out of Melbourne and Brisbane on Thai you can at the moment expect flat beds in J. Going from BKK-Europe it will depend on the route you pick what is available.

What if you book two separate flights ? SYD-BKK separately, and then BKK-EU separately with a stopover ? Will that be more expensive then booking AU-EU in one hit (and hence being limited mostly to Thai) ?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A

So I checked seatguru, and Thai only has flat beds on the 777W and A380. Is the consensus that using LM on any other plane in J is not such great value for money ?

What if you book two separate flights ? SYD-BKK separately, and then BKK-EU separately with a stopover ? Will that be more expensive then booking AU-EU in one hit (and hence being limited mostly to Thai) ?

thai used to be 'ok' in business... their product was only a little outdated and their service and food made up for it.

unfortunately now the food is pretty bad, and the service is not what is used to be. you'll need to make your own decision based on that. Would I personally fly 22 hours to Europe on an angled bed, with essentially premium economy food and service? no.

stoping over will incur a second ticket charge on LM... you can't build a stop in.

 

[PlutekPlutek]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A

stoping over will incur a second ticket charge on LM... you can't build a stop in.

And the second ticket charge is $$$ or points ? I.e. is it the same number of points for SYD-BKK and BKK-FRA as it would be for SYD-BKK-FRA with the only difference extra $$$ ?

 

[travelislife]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A

So I checked seatguru, and Thai only has flat beds on the 777W and A380. Is the consensus that using LM on any other plane in J is not such great value for money ?

Correct, as well as the 787. But all their 747's and about half their 777 fleet have angled seats, fine for a day flight not so great overnight. Saying that to get J all the way from Australia to Europe for $3000 is pretty much unheard of. You will struggle to get premium economy for that and Thai's J is most definitely better than premium economy on any airline, except probably their food, but if you like Thai food and stick to that and avoid the western choices it is ok.

What if you book two separate flights ? SYD-BKK separately, and then BKK-EU separately with a stopover ? Will that be more expensive then booking AU-EU in one hit (and hence being limited mostly to Thai) ?

Yes it will be more expensive.

 

[travelislife]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A

And the second ticket charge is $$$ or points ? I.e. is it the same number of points for SYD-BKK and BKK-FRA as it would be for SYD-BKK-FRA with the only difference extra $$$ ?

The points required SYD-BKK-SYD and BKK-FRA-BKK as separate bookings is more than a SYD-BKK-FRA-BKK-SYD booking.

 

[travelislife]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A

Would I personally fly 22 hours to Europe on an angled bed, with essentially premium economy food and service? no.

Not even if for the same budget/money your only other choice was a premium economy seat the whole way? Not premium economy seat in the world beats Thai's J seat (except for Thai's own premium economy to Scandinavia, which is a flat bed!)

 

[PlutekPlutek]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A

I'm doing some sample searches - is there a limit of how many passengers you can put on a single itinerary ? I'm able to find a lot of routes for 2 passengers, but absolutely nothing for three passengers (Sold Out). Is this a feature of LM, or a general indication of availability? I haven't been able to find a route from Bangkok to anywhere in Europe for next june for 3 seats. Is there a way around this ?

 

[PlutekPlutek]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A

With full business class ex Asia possible for $2000-2500 (giving you all the flexibility you need) it may be an option to use LM to get to asia and connect from there.

$2000-$2500 J Asia-EU return ? Where do you find those ?

 

[PlutekPlutek]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A

You can look up each airlines offering and routes on their own websites. Yes there are lot's of different airlines in *A, but out of a lot of Australian cities the options are mainly Thai and Singapore, but Singapore has a restriction in that it can only be booked 14 days out. Out of Melbourne and Brisbane on Thai you can at the moment expect flat beds in J. Going from BKK-Europe it will depend on the route you pick what is available.

Is the Singapore restriction only applicable to flights in/out of AUS ? I am looking at June 2015, and it looks like it is possible to book SIN-ZRH or SIN-CPH, or SIN-LHR.

 

[casanovawa]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A

Yeah i booked a redemption which has a leg on an SQ A380 in J in May next year,so they are not all hard and fast rules...

And yes the prices are going up especailly as the A$ drops, but J flights to Europe and the US are still much less than paying cash for them, and if you know a few tricks they are still much, much better...

 

[Alanslegal]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A

Is the Singapore restriction only applicable to flights in/out of AUS ? I am looking at June 2015, and it looks like it is possible to book SIN-ZRH or SIN-CPH, or SIN-LHR.

We flew SQ CDG-SIN-ICN earlier this year that was booked 4-5 months before the flights. I think the <14 days rule only applies with flights to/from Australia.

 

[travelislife]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A

I'm doing some sample searches - is there a limit of how many passengers you can put on a single itinerary ? I'm able to find a lot of routes for 2 passengers, but absolutely nothing for three passengers (Sold Out). Is this a feature of LM, or a general indication of availability? I haven't been able to find a route from Bangkok to anywhere in Europe for next june for 3 seats. Is there a way around this ?

You are looking for redemption seats, so you are correct that it will be very hard to find 3 seats in a premium cabin, this is true of a lot of programs. Thai is one airline where if you book two, occasionally a 3rd is opened up. Unfortunately with LM it isn't as easy as you can't put bookings on hold so that doesn't really help.

Yes the SQ restriction is only to/from Aus as far as I know.

 

[casanovawa]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A

Maybe you could book two Js and 1 Y and do a bit of swapping along the way....

 

[burmans]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A

$2000-$2500 J Asia-EU return ? Where do you find those ?

Was wondering that myself, have difficulty finding under $3K (at least with a decent airline)

 

[travelislife]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A

Was wondering that myself, have difficulty finding under $3K (at least with a decent airline)

The only ones I have seen down at that level on a revenue fare is Air India and Sri Lankan Airlines, so no idea where/if MEL_Traveller has found those kind of deals on the premium SQ, CX, LX etc.

 

[Flashback]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A

Reports are that Sri Lankan isn't too bad and of course they are OW now.

 

[Myrna]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A

Cousins in Australia want to visit us in UK. I think I can use our LM accounts to book flights for them - is this correct? Also, the only way of searching for flights using LM is through LM website - what I see is what I get - is this correct? Thanks!

 

[MEL_Traveller]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A

The only ones I have seen down at that level on a revenue fare is Air India and Sri Lankan Airlines, so no idea where/if MEL_Traveller has found those kind of deals on the premium SQ, CX, LX etc.

Sri Lankan is actually very good, and there are often 2-4-1 companion fares on Qatar that will bring the overall cost to around the same range.

Air India is another option.

Would I fly Singapore airlines economy to Singapore ($800 return with an immediate connection to Air India and/or Sri Lankan business class for $1500-$2000, both of the latter with full flat beds), as compared to Thai angled beds the whole way? I'd probably say yes given the TG product offering.

Alongside that, Sri Lankan will offer points and status credits, and Air India would get pretty close to star gold (which you would then use for lounge access on SQ).

Lots of options in business class out of asia, a good place to search is googleflights.