LifeMiles Devaluation

The Avianca lifemiles program has long been a favorite for booking Star Alliance awards. The program offered excellent rates for domestic awards and long-haul premium cabin flights to Europe, Asia, and elsewhere. Lifemiles is also an easy currency to earn due to Avianca's multiple transfer partners, common transfer bonuses, and frequent miles sales at attractive prices. But unfortunately, award costs have increased for a lot of redemptions in this latest lifemiles devaluation.

LifeMiles Increases Award Costs

Like some other airlines, lifemiles does not publish an award chart. But their zone-based award pricing was consistent across the board regardless of distance flown, which led to some excellent redemptions.

One of our favorites was booking flights between the US and Europe for:

• 30,000 miles in economy
• 63,000 miles in business
• 87,000 miles in first class (hello, Lufthansa first!).

These awards now cost:

• 35,000 miles in economy (17% increase)
• 70,000 miles in business (11% increase)
• 130,000 miles in first class (50% increase)

First class to Asia also increased, from 90,000 miles to 120,000 miles. (Can you think of any other program where a first class awards to Asia are cheaper than to Europe?!)

Surprisingly, some award costs have actually gone down. As Award Wallet points out, awards prices from the Northeast (Newark, Washington Dulles, and Boston) to the UK, Ireland, and Scandinavia have actually decreased. Awards on United Polaris between these destinations decreased from 60,000 miles to 45,000 miles. That's a nice consolation prize right there!

What to Make of these Changes

Do you remember the last lifemiles devaluation? Neither do I. The program's award prices has been the same for years, so it was long due for some changes.

Devaluations are never pleasant, but increase business class flights to Europe by 7,000 miles is quite modest. Despite this change, lifemiles remains a great option for business class flights on Star Alliance.

I find the increase in business class awards to Europe interesting in light of Avianca's new US co-branded credit cards. The newly-launched Avianca lifemiles American Express Elite Card offers a 10% rebate on partner award redemptions. Under the old pricing of 63,000 miles, this perk brought the price of a business class award down to 56,700. With the increase to 70,000 miles, the 10% rebate brings the award cost back down to 63,000 miles. This resembles Delta introducing a 15% discount on award flights to its cardholders, which is easy for Delta since they have dynamic award pricing.

Meanwhile, the steep increase in long-haul first class award flights is what really hurts. Increasing these costs would have been expected with any devaluation, considering we have seen similar redemptions go up in price with other partners, such as United and Virgin Atlantic. But increasing them by 50% in the case of first class awards to Europe is particularly egregious.

LifeMiles Devaluation: ToP Thoughts

We never want to see devaluations, but this could have been a lot worse. While lifemiles is no longer a viable option for booking first class flights to Europe, the program continues to offer great value for business class flights on Star Alliance airlines despite the price increase.

What do you think of this lifemiles devaluation? Come share your thoughts in our Facebook group!

HT: OMaaT