Avianca LifeMiles: The Ultimate Guide

Avianca has been around for over 100 years and is second in age only to KLM. The airline was founded in 1919 as a mail transportation company and was initially known as SCADTA or Sociedad Colombo-Alemana de Transportes Aéreos (the Colombian-German Air Transport Company).

Initially only flying a short route within its home country of Colombia, over the years the airline grew to become the nation’s largest carrier and one of the most prominent airlines in all of Latin America.

In 2009, the airline merged with Central American based airline TACA. The acquisition added dozens of routes and destinations to Avianca’s profile. In 2012, Avianca became a member of the Star Alliance.

Today, Avianca owns several subsidiaries throughout Central and South America, including:

• Avianca Costa Rica
• Avianca Ecuador
• Avianca El Salvador
• Avianca Express Americas
• Avianca Guatemala
• Avianca Honduras
• Avianca Cargo
• TACA Peru

The airline serves more than 60 destinations, primarily in Central and South America, with routes also available to the U.S. and Europe. Avianca uses a traditional hub-and-spoke system, where flights operate from various non-hub cities to one of its central hubs. Passengers traveling between these spoke cities connect through the hub.

Avianca’s hubs are Bogota, Colombia (BOG) and San Salvador, El Salvador (SAL).

To get started, you’ll need to sign up for a free LifeMiles account. At registration, the website will be in Spanish, however you can change to English by clicking the top-right button. Registration requires your passport number or some form of legal ID, so make sure to have that on hand.

Once completed, you are ready to begin earning LifeMiles.

Flying Avianca

Flying Avianca metal is the first option for earning LifeMiles. You’ll earn miles based on the fare class purchased and dollars spent.

If you have Avianca elite status, you’ll earn bonus LifeMiles based on the level of status. Purchasing additional services, such as seat selection, lounge access and upgrades also earns LifeMiles at the rate of 5 LifeMiles per dollar.

It’s worth noting that Basic, the cheapest fare, does not earn any LifeMiles.

Status Miles

Avianca elite status provides benefits that not only can make your flying experience more enjoyable but can quickly increase your LifeMiles balance due to elite member bonuses on paid flights.

Avianca has two cabin classes, economy and business, and those are further subdivided into four fare classes. Each fare earns LifeMiles at a different rate per dollar spent on the base fare, as detailed below, with the exception of basic economy. Here are Avianca’s cabins and fare classes:

Economy class:

• Basic: No LifeMiles earned
• Classic: 5 LifeMiles per dollar spent
• Flex: 7 LifeMiles per dollar spent

Business class:

• Business: 7 LifeMiles per dollar spent

Avianca has four levels of elite status. Each of these tiers earn bonus LifeMiles on the base fare and the higher the status, the more miles awarded per dollar.

• Red Plus: 1 LifeMile per dollar spent on the fare
• Silver: 3 LifeMiles per dollar spent on the fare
• Gold: 4 LifeMiles per dollar spent on the fare
• Diamond: 6 LifeMiles per dollar spent on the fare

Putting this information together: When booking an Avianca flight, you will earn a base variable rate, dependent on the fare class per dollar spent. Then, you will need to multiply the price of the ticket times the elite-status bonus earning rate. Finally, add the two totals together for the overall LifeMile earnings.

Here’s an example: If you spend $500 on an eligible Classic ticket, you will earn 5 LifeMiles per dollar, for a total of 2,500 LifeMiles.

If you are a Diamond elite, you would earn an additional 6 miles per dollar on the fare. With a base fare of $500 multiplied by six, that’s an additional 3,000 LifeMiles.

In total, you’d earn 2,500 LifeMiles from the ticket purchase plus 3,000 LifeMiles from the elite bonus giving you a total of 5,500 LifeMiles.

Earning Status

Starting in 2023, Avianca introduced new requirements for elite status. To earn status, two criteria must be met.

First, you must meet the elite status qualifying miles threshold. These miles  can be earned at varying rates by the following activities:

Interestingly, flexible points transferred into LifeMiles count toward earning elite status at a ratio of 20 points transferred to one qualifying mile. While that may sound like an easy and fast way to attain LifeMiles status and subsequently Star Alliance status, you would still have to fulfill the next requirement which may or may not be feasible.

The second requirement is to earn a minimum number of miles on Avianca flights or through the purchase of additional Avianca services.

To qualify for Avianca’s lowest elite status, Red Plus, you’ll need to earn at least 6,000 qualifying miles, of which 1,000 must be earned through flying Avianca or buying Avianca additional services.

Flights on Star Alliance Partners

Unlike the revenue-based earning model of Avianca, LifeMiles accrued with Star Alliance airlines are based on distance flown and fare class. Each partner airline has a unique LifeMiles earnings table.

Here’s the table for United Airlines:

Each fare code on United earns redeemable LifeMiles and elite qualifying miles at a different rate, based on the distance flown. For example, a flight from San Francisco (SFO) to Chicago (ORD) is 1,846 miles in the air. If this route is flown on a United ticket purchased in the S fare class, the traveler would earn 50% of the distance flown, or 923 redeemable LifeMiles if the flight was credited to the LifeMiles program.

Outside of the Star Alliance, Avianca has partnerships with GOL, Iberia and EasyFly. LifeMiles can be earned and redeemed with GOL and Iberia, however any miles earned do not count towards elite status. Award redemption isn’t available with EasyFly but LifeMiles can be earned on Avianca codeshare flights operated by EasyFly.

Transfer Partners

LifeMiles is a transfer partner of almost all the major flexible points programs. That means it’s possible to pool your points from multiple programs into LifeMiles, in order to accumulate enough points for an award ticket.

Here are the programs that transfer into LifeMiles with their respective transfer rates:

• American Express Membership Rewards: 1:1
• Brex: 1,500:1,000
• Capital One: 1:1
• Citi ThankYou Points: 1:1
• Marriott Bonvoy: 3:1, get an additional 5,000 miles when transfering in increments of 60,000

To get even more value out of your flexible points, watch out for promotions that offer an additional bonus when transferring LifeMiles. Transfer bonuses can be as high as 25%—in this instance if you transfer 10,000 Membership Rewards to Avianca, you would end up with 12,500 LifeMiles.

Shopping Portals

Avianca has a shopping portal for stores in Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Guatemala, so it’s not particularly useful unless you are a resident of those countries.

You can earn LifeMiles through the shopping portal, but you can also redeem LifeMiles toward purchases. For a current list of shopping partners that qualify for purchases with LifeMiles, go to the LifeMiles shopping portal. Redeeming LifeMiles for merchandise is generally a poor value, so check the numbers first and see if it makes sense.

LifeMiles Hotels is a hotel booking portal run by Booking.com which can be used to either earn or spend LifeMiles. The number of points earned on paid hotel stays varies depending on the property and date. It’s possible to earn significant LifeMiles on a hotel stay that you were planning anyway. LifeMiles Hotels frequently runs promotions, offering bonus miles on hotel stays booked.

A one night stay at the Hilton New York Times Square, for example, would result in 17, 670 LifeMiles earned. That works out to roughly 33 miles per dollar on top of the points you’d earn from using your credit card. In contrast, a one night stay at the Manhattan Hotel at Times Square earns a more modest 11 miles per dollar—still a good return.

Just remember that you won’t earn hotel loyalty points when you book through a third party like LifeMiles Hotels and that your elite status will likely not be recognized during your stay.

Buying Miles

Buying miles is generally not recommended. It’s usually very expensive and typically only makes sense when topping off your mileage balance in order to make an award redemption. However, LifeMiles is an exception to this rule as it frequently puts its miles on sale for a significant discount.

Past promotions have offered as much as  a 200% bonus on purchased miles. With that hefty a discount, it can make financial sense to buy miles for an immediate award redemption.

Additionally, LifeMiles purchases are done directly, unlike most other programs which process their transactions through points.com. This means that you can earn extra points by using a credit card with an airline purchase spending category.

LifeMiles Club

LifeMiles Club is a monthly membership program that allows subscribers to buy LifeMiles at a discounted rate. It’s available at six different price levels, starting at $9.99 per month and topping out at $125.99 per month. We don’t recommend buying miles speculatively in this way, even if discounted.

On Avianca Flights

Avianca uses a region-based award chart, so you can expect to pay a specific amount of LifeMiles depending on the designated region Avianca assigns to a destination. The following chart lists Avianca’s regions.

Avianca also allows you to use your LifeMiles to upgrade to a higher cabin when flying on Avianca metal. How many LifeMiles an upgrade to business class will cost depends on the origin and destination of the flight.

When booking an award flight on Avianca, you’ll be given the choice of different fare levels within that class of service. An economy-class flight from Bogota (BOG) to Los Angeles (LAX) offers the following choices with their respective features. Note that adding more options, such as a checked bag or seat selection, increases the number of miles needed for the award.

On Flights With Partners

As a member of the Star Alliance, LifeMiles can be used for award flights on all of its partners. Fortunately, LifeMiles doesn’t charge carrier-imposed fees on its partner award redemptions, unlike most other airline programs. This can save you hundreds of dollars, so even if the mileage costs are higher, the savings from not paying these hefty fees can more than make up for the difference.

To book a partner award flight, navigate over to the flight redemption page. Select “Star Alliance” in the dropdown box to search partner award flights.

While many airline programs have moved to dynamic award pricing, LifeMiles publishes a fixed award chart. The advantage with fixed redemptions is that you know exactly how many miles you need to accumulate for a particular award.

LifeMiles can also be used to upgrade Star Alliance paid flights in certain fare classes. The upgrade chart for each partner is listed on the specific partner’s page on the LifeMiles site.

Award Booking Fee

There’s no fee for booking an Avianca award but partner redemptions are charged $25 per ticket if booked online. Booking through Avianca’s sales office and call center incurs a booking fee depending on the route.

Change and Cancellation Fees

Award redemptions may be canceled or changed. You’ll have to call in to an Avianca call center to make changes or to cancel a LifeMiles award ticket—it is not possible to do this online. Changes or cancellations cost between $30 to $200 U.S. dollars per ticket.

Infant Fees

Infants 10 days and older are welcome on Avianca flights. Children under 10 days are required to have a certificate issued from their physician.

• Children under 24 months can fly as a lap infant.
• Avianca’s lap infant fare is dependent on the region and class of the flight. This can be a great deal on shorter flights, but for an international premium cabins award can get expensive.
• Fuel surcharges are not added to lap infant tickets.
• Children 24 months and over are required to have their own seat.

Avianca lists its infant fares by region and class of service. International flights from and to Europe, for example, are as follows:

From the above chart, infants receive a 90% discount on flights. This means if you are flying with a lap infant on an award flight, the lap infant charge would be 10% of the revenue fare, which can be a sizable amount of money in a premium cabin.

Sweet Spots

Avianca’s own award chart has some great redemptions, but where the real value lies is with its award chart for Star Alliance partners.

Short-haul Domestic Flights on United Airlines

Avianca’s Star Alliance partner, United Airlines, has a huge network of flights throughout the U.S. For flights within the same region, you can expect to pay 7,500 LifeMiles but sometimes even less.

This flight from Denver, Colorado (DEN) to Grand Junction, Colorado (GJT) runs just 6,500 LifeMiles. Paying cash for this same flight would cost close to $300. Redeeming United MileagePlus miles for the same flights would cost at least 13,500 to 15,000 miles.

U.S. to Europe in Business and First Class

Another valuable way to redeem LifeMiles is for flights to Europe on German carrier Lufthansa. Business-class flights start at 63,000 LifeMiles and just $26.701 in fees one way. Fees are dependent on current currency conversion rates. For first class, just 87,000 LifeMiles plus fees are required.

Quirks

Mixed-Cabin Bookings

Avianca allows for mixed-cabin bookings. Initially, this can seem disappointing, but it’s actually a great way to save some LifeMiles. If you have an itinerary with several segments, for example, and one of those segments is quite short, you can opt for flying economy for this segment while flying a premium cabin on the long-haul segment. LifeMiles adjusts the award price downwards to reflect the economy segment instead of charging the full premium cabin award pricing.

A business-class award flight from Boston (BOS) to Copenhagen (CPH) would normally price at 60,000 LifeMiles.

However, if you’re willing to fly economy from Zurich (ZRH) to Copenhagen, the total price drops to 55,660 LifeMiles.

Intra-europe business class is typically an economy seat with the middle seat empty, so flying regular economy on a short-haul flight like this one is not giving up much and you’d be saving 4,340 LifeMiles.

Empty Seat

Avianca allows you to purchase the empty seat next to you if it is available when you arrive at the airport.  The charge depends on the destination. The empty seat option isn’t available on all routes, but can be a great help if you need the comfort of extra space.

Expiration

If you hold elite status with Avianca, miles remain valid for 24 months from the date of last accrual. Non-elite members’ LifeMiles expire after 12 months from the date of last accrual. It’s important to note that the expiration date is based on accrual and not on activity. That means an award redemption does not extend the expiry date of your miles.

It is easy to keep LifeMiles from expiring by:

• transferring in points from a flexible rewards program
• purchasing LifeMiles
• transferring LifeMiles from one member to another

Any of these actions count as accrual activities.

Family Pooling

Avianca does not offer family pooling for LifeMiles. You can always gift or transfer miles to another person, but the fees are steep at 1.5 cents per mile and more than likely not worth it. You would be better off booking a flight for others rather than paying the fees to transfer the miles or buying miles to top off an account for an award.

The Avianca LifeMiles program is worth taking the time to familiarize yourself with. LifeMiles are easy to accumulate, the award chart is reasonable and there are no carrier-imposed fees. The odds are that LifeMiles can get you where you want to go while maximizing the value of your hard-earned miles.