Lifemiles and Air Canada are good options for booking Star Alliance award tickets for less than United charges.
However Lifemiles no longer publishes an award chart, which allows them to devalue their miles without providing advance notice.
I researched pricing on dozens of routes to check what exactly changed today:
- Newark-Cleveland on United: Remains 6.5K coach, 15K business
- Newark-Fort Lauderdale on United: Remains 10K coach
- Newark-Los Angeles on United: Remains 10K coach
- Newark-Cancun on United: Remains 14K coach, 30K business
- Newark-Panama on United: Remains 17.5K coach, 30K business
- Newark-Honolulu on United: Was 15K, now 22.5K coach
- Newark-Sao Paulo on United: Remains 30K coach, 50K business
- Newark-London on United: Was 20K coach, 60K business. Now 22.5K coach, 45K business.
- Newark-Dublin on United: Was 20K coach, 60K business. Now 37K coach, 70K business.
- Newark-Edinburgh on United: Was 20K coach, 60K business. Now 37K coach, 70K business.
- Newark-Iceland on United: Was 20K coach, 60K business. Now 37K coach, 70K business.
- Washington DC-London on United: Was 20K coach, 60K business. Now 37K coach, 70K business.
- Newark-Venice on United: Was 30K coach, 63K business. Now 35K coach, 70K business.
- Newark-Paris on United: Was 30K coach, 63K business. Now 35K coach, 70K business.
- Newark-Athens on United: Was 30K coach, 63K business. Now 39K coach, 70K business.
- Chicago-London on United: Was 30K coach, 63K business. Now 39K coach, 70K business.
- Newark-Frankfurt on Lufthansa: Was 30K coach, 63K business, 87K first. Now 35K coach, 70K business, 130K first.
- Chicago-Munich on Lufthansa: Was 30K coach, 63K business, 87K first. Now 37K coach, 70K business, 136K first.
- Los Angeles-Frankfurt on Lufthansa: Was 30K coach, 63K business, 87K first. Now 39K coach, 70K business, 142K first.
- Chicago-Tokyo on ANA: Was 90K first, Now 120K first
- Honolulu-Tokyo on ANA: Remains 27.5K coach, 48K business, 66K first.
- Los Angeles-Tokyo on United: Was 35K coach, 75K business. Now 47K coach, 90K business.
- San Francisco-Singapore on United: Was 39K coach, 78K business. Now 47K coach, 90K business.
- Newark-Johannesburg on United: Remains 40K coach, 78K business
- Washington DC-Accra on United: Remains 40K coach, 78K business
- Los Angeles-Sydney on United: Remains 40K coach, 80K business
- San Francisco-Auckland on United: Remains 40K coach, 80K business
- San Francisco-Papeete on United: Remains 40K coach, 80K business
Luckily, most domestic flights appear to remain the same. First class on Lufthansa and ANA gets hit pretty bad. The one highlight here is just 45K miles to fly United business class from Newark to London. Otherwise, most of these routes are now better with Air Canada miles than Lifemiles. At least, until their next devaluation.
Of course Lifemiles can always decide to make further devaluations, so if you are sitting on miles, you may want to redeem them sooner rather than later.
It’s why I always say to keep points with banks like AMEX, Capital One, Chase, or Citi and only transfer them over to airlines as needed. That way they won’t be devalued overnight.
What do you think of today’s changes? How has pricing changed on your favorite routes?
HT: Lucky
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15 Comments On "Avianca Lifemiles Devaluation: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly On Dozens Of Routes"
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How about geneve
Bank points are devaluing constantly. While it’s true that having more options leverages somewhat the fact is that hoarding any points (including bank) is a negative return on investment
Who said to hoard? Earn and burn is always the name of the game.
Bottom line is that storing them with banks instead of airlines makes sense as a hedge against devaluation, even if you do lose out on transfer bonuses.
or zrh, used to be 16.5k in coach
gone up to 27k
@Dan
Do you think the 45k to London is a glitch?
Seems likely, though it can take years for LM to fix their glitches.
TBD.
Never any availability on Lifemiles for United from Newark. Always have the day before or after you need but almost never on the date you put in.
guess you gitta search a day of the actual date you need and you should have it
Literally this.
LifeMiles site is also impossible to use. Last year, I found availability for an intra-Europe flight for 7.5K, transferred over the points from Amex, and then their site stopped working. I had to transfer another 8K to AirCanada for the same flight. And now that it’s been over a year, those LifeMiles expired…
Dan, do you have a link to sign up for lifemiles?
Newark-TLV still same?
LifeMiles….what a joke,
Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it !
They have great deals for as low as 4k from NY to El Salvador and Guatemala, but be VERY careful with their 12mth expiry policy.