Avianca "Lifemiles" - Questions and Discussion

[anna2103]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

I tried to email, they replied saying I had to ring Avianca call centre. Did that, was told had to contact lifemiles. We do we do this to Lifmeils program saga to ourselves!!!. Think I will call Lifemiles again next week and try again. Thai Sydney office told me that needs to be done.

you should.

You should also confirm directly with thai, after the ticket has been revalidated, to ensure they have a valid ticket number against the booking.

(perhaps an easier option would be to email lifemiles support, they usually answer overnight (our time) *if* they are going to reply)

 

[legroom]

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

I got the booking approved! I managed to find flights departing NRT to BKK in F, so did the same thing (screenshots...etc). Now I have TG641 NRT-BKK connecting TG475 BKK-SYD with 3:50 layover in BKK. All for 50000 miles. That's 15.5hr of F! Bargain!

It looks like LM is still willing to book manually for us. So for those that didn't have much luck, it was pretty much a bad agent. But I guess with emails, it's not as convenient as HUACA.

Well, the saga is not over yet until they called me to issue the ticket. Just to confirm, how long does the booking usually hold? 72hrs? When should I start panicking if they don't call?

Keep an eye on the thread of successful booking. If I get it ticketed without issue, I'll post it there, otherwise, I'll whinge here.

Just to clarify

You asked them to manually link the two sectors together as one award for 50,000 miles (+ some $$$ ?).

How is it better than doing two separate awards online ?

Less miles / money ?

I'm a Lifemiles NB.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

Just to clarify

You asked them to manually link the two sectors together as one award for 50,000 miles (+ some $$$ ?).

How is it better than doing two separate awards online ?

Less miles / money ?

I'm a Lifemiles NB.

Indeed that's the reason!

Adding the two sectors together would be double, plus additional taxes for departure from the intermediate airport.

 

[legroom]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

Indeed that's the reason!

Adding the two sectors together would be about double.

Thanks

Has anyone had experience asking them to join a 2nd award to an already ticketed award for the same reason : less miles etc. ?

Didn't know about this manual linking before. GREAT tip !

 

[VAG newbie]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

Just to clarify

You asked them to manually link the two sectors together as one award for 50,000 miles (+ some $$$ ?).

How is it better than doing two separate awards online ?

Less miles / money ?

I'm a Lifemiles NB.

Lots of reasons not to 2 separate bookings.

1. Way more expensive:

LM charges 60k in F from AUS to SE Asia. Then 50k from SE Asia to NE Asia. So you end up paying 110k! More than double. Whereas AUS to NE Asia is only 50k in F. Sweet spot for LM.

Plus as MEL said, double te tax, double the booking fees.

2. Not protected if incoming flight delayed.

If there is a delay in the incoming flight so you miss the connecting flight, if on 2 separate tickets, it's considered a no show, and the second leg is void. The first airline is not responsible cuz the contract of carriage on the first ticket only promise to get you to the connecting airport, not your destination.

But if you are on 1 ticket, then you are covered. The operating airline that caused the delay is responsible to get you to your destination.

The only reason for 2 tickets is if you need to stop over, or with LM in particular, that you need to book separate cabin class.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

Thanks

Has anyone had experience asking them to join a 2nd award to an already ticketed award for the same reason : less miles etc. ?

Didn't know about this manual linking before. GREAT tip !

the manual linking has been described earlier... it is only available in circumstances where:

• the individual sectors are available (2 screen shots required)
• the through booking cannot be made on-line (screen shot required)
• the through booking would ordinarily have been available before the current 'glitch' (including for example an allowed routing, and connection time under 8 hours). You can't simply pull together two sectors for an itinerary that wasn't previously available.

To complete the booking you need to email lifemiles support (email can be found under 'contacts' on LM) and attach the screenshots, with an explanation of the issue. You will also need to include information such as your LM number, name, DOB.

They will (may) respond with a confirmation of the booking, and ask a time you will be available for them to call to take payment. They may or may not call, and they may or may not call at a convenient time.

Adding a sector to the booking would require a change fee, so probably cheaper to cancel and rebook the whole thing. But it's a time consuming process.

 

[ComeGroundWithMe]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

Thanks for re-stating the manual booking process MEL_Traveller.

Two questions though:

(1) Can you pay with the 'More Cash, Less Miles' scheme with the manual bookings?
and
(2) Can you achieve the same effect by calling them instead of emailing?

 

[VAG newbie]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

Thanks for re-stating the manual booking process MEL_Traveller.

Two questions though:

(1) Can you pay with the 'More Cash, Less Miles' scheme with the manual bookings?
and
(2) Can you achieve the same effect by calling them instead of emailing?

Answers to your question:

1). Yes. But the rates are inconsistent based on reports in this forum. Someone were charged at full price, ie, 3.3 cents/mile.

2). I don't know if anyone tried. But you need to email the screenshots so maybe no. But why don't you try and let us know.

 

[robcuk]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

I got the booking approved! I managed to find flights departing NRT to BKK in F, so did the same thing (screenshots...etc). Now I have TG641 NRT-BKK connecting TG475 BKK-SYD with 3:50 layover in BKK. All for 50000 miles. That's 15.5hr of F! Bargain!

It looks like LM is still willing to book manually for us. So for those that didn't have much luck, it was pretty much a bad agent. But I guess with emails, it's not as convenient as HUACA.

Well, the saga is not over yet until they called me to issue the ticket. Just to confirm, how long does the booking usually hold? 72hrs? When should I start panicking if they don't call?

Keep an eye on the thread of successful booking. If I get it ticketed without issue, I'll post it there, otherwise, I'll whinge here.

We had some dramas with a recent booking for a friend - we rang them around 10pm Sydney time to pay for the flight after sending them screenshots of the availability. All ok.

 

[legroom]

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

I will bookmark these two posts.

Triple L I K E S !!!

Thought I did read the thread but obviously this gem escaped my perusal. My bad !

Showed the value of staying glued and putting your hand up for clarification.

the manual linking has been described earlier... it is only available in circumstances where:

• the individual sectors are available (2 screen shots required)
• the through booking cannot be made on-line (screen shot required)
• the through booking would ordinarily have been available before the current 'glitch' (including for example an allowed routing, and connection time under 8 hours). You can't simply pull together two sectors for an itinerary that wasn't previously available.

To complete the booking you need to email lifemiles support (email can be found under 'contacts' on LM) and attach the screenshots, with an explanation of the issue. You will also need to include information such as your LM number, name, DOB.

They will (may) respond with a confirmation of the booking, and ask a time you will be available for them to call to take payment. They may or may not call, and they may or may not call at a convenient time.

Adding a sector to the booking would require a change fee, so probably cheaper to cancel and rebook the whole thing. But it's a time consuming process.

Lots of reasons not to 2 separate bookings.

1. Way more expensive:

LM charges 60k in F from AUS to SE Asia. Then 50k from SE Asia to NE Asia. So you end up paying 110k! More than double. Whereas AUS to NE Asia is only 50k in F. Sweet spot for LM.

Plus as MEL said, double te tax, double the booking fees.

2. Not protected if incoming flight delayed.

If there is a delay in the incoming flight so you miss the connecting flight, if on 2 separate tickets, it's considered a no show, and the second leg is void. The first airline is not responsible cuz the contract of carriage on the first ticket only promise to get you to the connecting airport, not your destination.

But if you are on 1 ticket, then you are covered. The operating airline that caused the delay is responsible to get you to your destination.

The only reason for 2 tickets is if you need to stop over, or with LM in particular, that you need to book separate cabin class.

OK, I feel better now - in retrospect.

It turned out that we were planning to have a BKK stopover but this tip should work on the way back with BKK as a simple transit point.

PS: but the manual linking would not work for mixed booking (J / F). Or, does it ? My understanding is that LM does not allow mixed booking at all.

 

[bcworld]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

Or, does it ?

No.

My understanding is that LM does not allow mixed booking at all.

Correct.

 

[VAG newbie]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

Doom! LM hasn't called yet. It's day 2 now and I'm starting to get a bit worried.

How many people had booking canceled due to the delay with LM?

 

[anna2103]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

Good result 2, bad result 1 - they called at 6am this morning to collect payment approx. 36 hours after booking as a point of reference for Hong Kong - BKK - Syd

 

[legroom]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

Just been told by one agent that "No, we can not manually link two sectors as one award; What you can do on the website is all we can do here"

"Others" to Asia (via BKK)

HUACA

*******
2nd agent:

"Only Support section could manually link two sectors as one award per the chart; CSRs cannot do it at all"

*******

There you go, not possible to initiate a manual link by a phone call.

My email to support was 12 hrs ago...... still sometime yet before they (may / will) return my request.

Fingers crossed !

 

[ComeGroundWithMe]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

Does anyone know the situation with Air India? Do they only release one award seat at a time or something?

 

[ComeGroundWithMe]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

Just been told by one agent that "No, we can not manually link two sectors as one award; What you can do on the website is all we can do here"

"Others" to Asia (via BKK)

HUACA

Why does it keep getting worse for us? The discount for Oceania - North Asia is not worth all of this (insert expletive) we have to put up with...

 

[anat0l]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

Why does it keep getting worse for us? The discount for Oceania - North Asia is not worth all of this (insert expletive) we have to put up with...

There are three ways to break down a customer: tell them explicitly you're not wanted, tell them implicitly you're not wanted, or give them as many subtle hints as possible that they are not wanted.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

Just been told by one agent that "No, we can not manually link two sectors as one award; What you can do on the website is all we can do here"

"Others" to Asia (via BKK)

HUACA

*******
2nd agent:

"Only Support section could manually link two sectors as one award per the chart; CSRs cannot do it at all"

*******

There you go, not possible to initiate a manual link by a phone call.

My email to support was 12 hrs ago...... still sometime yet before they (may / will) return my request.

Fingers crossed !

thanks for the data point... but I suspected as much. the call centre has only ever been able to copy what we could see ourselves on the website, so it makes sense they can't do the linking. there must be some override the tech support has to do in order to make the booking.

all my emails from them have come through overnight our time... usually like 2-3am.

 

[ComeGroundWithMe]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

thanks for the data point... but I suspected as much. the call centre has only ever been able to copy what we could see ourselves on the website, so it makes sense they can't do the linking. there must be some override the tech support has to do in order to make the booking.

all my emails from them have come through overnight our time... usually like 2-3am.

Do you guys think that this 'tech support' issue is going to be resolved soon? Is it a deliberate block by Lifemiles?

 

[legroom]

re: Avianca "Life Miles" - Questions and Discussion

thanks for the data point... but I suspected as much. the call centre has only ever been able to copy what we could see ourselves on the website, so it makes sense they can't do the linking. there must be some override the tech support has to do in order to make the booking.

all my emails from them have come through overnight our time... usually like 2-3am.

Just to reconfirm

The email for tech support is still [email protected] ?

Don't want to hold my breath for too long if there is a better email to use.

Thanks