Update: DEAD! Don’t miss it if this becomes alive again. Sign up for deal notification alerts here!
You can transfer points from Capital One, Citi, or Brex to Lifemiles with a 25% transfer bonus through 12/17.
With this promotion you’ll be able to redeem United award flights from 5.2K points each way.
Avianca is a Star Alliance member and their Lifemiles program is an interesting one. Lifemiles can be used to book travel with partner airlines like United and Air Canada within North America.
Lifemiles is one of the rare mileage programs that doesn’t collect any fuel surcharges. Note that Avianca Lifemiles require earning activity every 12 months in order to stop your miles from expiring. Transferring points to Lifemiles will extend the points validity for 12 more months.
- You’ll need to open a Lifemiles account here before you can search for award tickets online.
- Lifemiles allows you to use cash+points on award tickets, where you can effectively buy miles from about 1.5 cents each on the award search results page. You do need to have 40% of the required miles in order to do this.
Back when I used to give regular seminars I talked about many of the glitch cities that existed that allowed you to fly to Europe or Asia for just 12.5K Lifemiles, but a blogger managed to have them killed by complaining to the DoT about a flight that involved a trip from North America to Guam via Asia that Lifemiles used to count as a domestic US award.
They got rid of their award charts in 2019, so I set about figuring out what they charge for awards.
On their old award chart, Lifemiles split up the US into 3 zones:
US Zone 1: Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia, Washington DC.
US Zone 2: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin
US Zone 3: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming
This used to be the one-way mileage requirements for travel within the US:
| From/To | US Zone 1 | US Zone 2 | US Zone 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| US Zone 1 | 7.5K Coach 15K Business | 10K Coach 15K Business | 12.5K Coach 25K Business |
| US Zone 2 | 10K Coach 15K Business | 7.5K Coach 15K Business | 12.5K Coach 25K Business |
| US Zone 3 | 12.5K Coach 25K Business | 12.5K Coach 25K Business | 7.5K Coach 15K Business |
The new formula isn’t published, but first I tried to figure out if it could be based off of the previous zones.
It soon became clear that the old zones are dead and things were working based on the distance of the flight.
I used GCMap.com to calculate the distance between airports and try to figure out what their new award chart is.
I included the distance flown in parenthesis in the sample routes below. Based on those I believe that Lifemiles typically charges:
- 6.5K miles in coach and 15K-16K miles in business for flights under 500 miles in distance.
- 7.5K miles in coach and 15K-16K miles in business for flights 500-799 miles in distance.
- 10K miles in coach and 15K-25K miles in business for flights 800-1,199 miles in distance.
- 12.5K+ miles in coach and 15K+ miles in business for flights 1,200+ miles in distance.
There are some exceptions. The short haul pricing only seems to apply within the US, as flights between NYC and Toronto or Montreal are 10K in coach or 15K in business. Chicago to Great Falls is 1,210 miles in distance and should cost 12.5K miles in coach, but only costs 7.5K miles. But for the most part, domestic routes in coach seemed to follow this formula.
Business class pricing though is all over the place.
Lifemiles used to always charge a $25 booking fee on top of tax, but now the booking fee is variable and starts at $10.
Note that Lifemiles also allows cash plus points. For example you can use 3.5K miles+$45 instead of 6.5K miles.
- All of these routes are under 500 miles in distance, cost 6.5K miles each way in coach, and had a $10 booking fee:
- Chicago-Kansas City (403): 6.5K coach, 15K business. $10 booking fee.
- Cleveland-Chicago (315): 6.5K coach, 16K business. $10 booking fee.
- Houston-New Orleans (305): 6.5K coach, 15K business. $10 booking fee.
- Newark-Cleveland (404): 6.5K coach, 15K business. $10 booking fee.
- Newark-Boston (200): 6.5K coach, 15K business. $10 booking fee.
- Newark-Columbus (463): 6.5K coach, 15K business. $10 booking fee.
- Newark-Detroit (488): 6.5K coach, 15K business. $10 booking fee.
- Newark-Pittsburgh (319): 6.5K coach, 15K business. $10 booking fee.
- Newark-Washington/IAD (212): 6.5K coach, 15K business. $10 booking fee.
- Los Angeles-Las Vegas (236): 6.5K coach, 15K business. $10 booking fee.
- Los Angeles-Phoenix (370): 6.5K coach, 15K business. $10 booking fee.
- Los Angeles-San Francisco (337): 6.5K coach, 15K business. $10 booking fee.
- Washington/IAD-Charlotte (322): 6.5K coach, 15K business. $10 booking fee.
- The following routes cost 7.5K miles in coach and vary between 500-799 miles in distance. The booking fee on these is $10 as well:
- Newark-Atlanta (746): 7.5K coach, 16K business. $10 booking fee.
- Newark-Charlotte (529): 7.5K coach, 15K business. $10 booking fee.
- Newark-Cincinnati (569): 7.5K coach, 16K business. $10 booking fee.
- LaGuardia/Newark-Chicago (719): 7.5K coach, 16K business. $10 booking fee.
- Los Angeles-Jackson Hole (784): 7.5K coach. 15K business. $10 booking fee.
- San Francisco-Seattle (679): 7.5K coach, 25K business. $10 booking fee.
- Washington/IAD-Orlando (758): 7.5K coach, 16K business. $10 booking fee.
Exception route: Chicago-Great Falls (1,210): 7.5K coach, 15K business. $25 booking fee.
- The following routes cost 10K miles each and vary between 800-1,199 miles in distance. The booking fee on these ranged from $15-$25:
- Chicago-Bozeman (1,186): 10K coach, 15K business. $15 booking fee.
- Chicago-Denver (888): 10K coach, 25K business. $15 booking fee.
- Cleveland-Orlando (895): 10K coach, 15K business. $15 booking fee.
- Chicago-Fort Lauderdale (1,182): 10K coach, 15K business. $15 booking fee.
- LaGuardia/Newark-Toronto (357): 10K coach, 15K business. $25 booking fee.
- LaGuardia/Newark-Montreal (324): 10K coach, 15K business. $25 booking fee.
- Los Angeles-Colorado Springs (833): 10K coach. $15 booking fee.
- Los Angeles-Denver (862): 10K coach, 25K business. $15 booking fee.
- Los Angeles-Seattle (954): 10K coach, 25K business. $15 booking fee.
- Newark-Fort Lauderdale (1,065): 10K coach, 15K business. $15 booking fee.
- Newark-Kansas City (1,094): 10K coach, 15K business. $15 booking fee.
- Newark-Orlando (937): 10K coach, 15K business. $15 booking fee.
- Newark-New Orleans (1,167): 10K coach, 15K business. $15 booking fee.
- Washington/IAD-Fort Lauderdale (901): 10K coach, 15K business. $15 booking fee.
- The following awards over 1,200 miles in distance cost 12.5K or more miles:
- Chicago-El Paso (1,236): 12.5K coach, 25K business. $15 booking fee.
- Chicago-Salt Lake City (1,250): 12.5K coach, 25K business. $15 booking fee.
- LaGuardia/Newark-Houston (1,400): 12.5K coach, 15K business. $15 booking fee.
- Newark-Vancouver (2,429): 12.5K coach, 25K business. $25 booking fee.
- Newark-Los Angeles (2,454): 13.5K coach, 25K business. $25 booking fee.
- Los Angeles-Honolulu (2,256): 15K coach, 40K business. $25 booking fee.
- Newark-Honolulu (4,962): 15K coach. Keep dreaming in business. $25 booking fee.
- JFK-Zurich (3,931): 16.5K coach, 63K business. $25 booking fee.
- Newark-Sao Paulo (4,758): 30K coach, 50K business. $25 booking fee.
- Newark-Tel Aviv (5,692): 42.5K coach, 78K business. $25 booking fee.
While I typically book all of my travel as one-way as that allows the most flexibility, with Lifemiles you’ll pay the booking fee twice if you book 2 one-way awards instead of a round-trip award.
It’s worth noting that Lifemiles has non-existent customer service and their website does not see all of the awards that it should, so you should always check for availability before transferring miles.
Learn about supercharging your earnings via a Citi Quadfecta here.
Will you transfer points to Lifemiles?
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13 Comments On "Transfer Citi Or Capital One Points To Avianca Lifemiles And Get A 25% Bonus, Redeem United Award Flights From 5.2K Points!"
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I just transferred points last week. Am I SOL or is there any way to take advantage of this still?
Sol
I transferred Citi and it shows up with 25% more on the transactions page on my lifemiles account but the LM balance is still 0
Tried logging in and out, but still not showing up and not letting me book. So weird because I see the transfer on LM. What to do?
Wait a day.
Sheme that there is no love for amex
What’s SOL?
Is this a workaround for blackout dates? Hoping to book chi-nyc flights for 7.5k on New Years weekend (December 30 – January 2).
i used your search method described above and still no availability even when i check +/- 1 day.
Shouldn’t the citi website show the transfer transfer with the updated promotional 25 percent increase? I checked and it still showing the regular 1,000 points = 1,000 lifemiles.
No, this bonus is from the airline, not the bank.
Has anyone used avianca miles to go to Israel?
does avianca still have flight booking from new york to cleveland?
hey, just confirming that only flights that show up in green on united are saver and eligible for booking using lifemiles?