Avianca LifeMiles Award Booking Instructions

The Avianca LifeMiles program, frequent flyer program of Colombian airline Avianca, has been a favorite among award travel enthusiasts in the past years as a great place to book Star Alliance awards at affordable rates. U.S. consumers can easily rack up miles with the LifeMiles program by transferring points from American Express Membership Rewards, Capital One Rewards and Citi ThankYou Rewards. Plus, the Avianca LifeMiles program doesn’t levy fuel surcharges on its award flights, which keeps out-of-pocket costs on award bookings very low.

Unfortunately, following a greater trend in the frequent flyer industry, Avianca LifeMiles recently raised rates for award flights on some of its routes, including some long-haul flight routes from North America. Nevertheless, there’s still a lot of value to be found in this program. And, if you have a credit card from one of the three issuers mentioned above, it’s definitely worth familiarizing yourself with the Avianca LifeMiles program.

The process of booking an award flight through the Avianca LifeMiles program can sometimes be confusing. So, in this article, we’re going to give you step-by-step instructions on how to book an award flight through Avianca LifeMiles as well as how you can join the program and quickly earn miles.

Joining Avianca LifeMiles

If you want to book an award flight through Avianca LifeMiles, you’ll need to first be a member of the program. To enroll in LifeMiles, go to the Avianca website and click the “LifeMiles” tab on the top toolbar of the homepage, then click the “LifeMiles Program” from the drop-down menu that appears.

Once you click the “LifeMiles Program” option, you’ll be redirected to a new page, where you can read about the benefits of the LifeMiles program and join the program by clicking the “Sign up” button.

You’ll then be redirected to a page where you’ll be asked to enter your email and create a password for your LifeMiles account.

Finally, you’ll need to provide some personal information, including your name, country of citizenship, date of birth and national ID number (which can be your passport number).

Once you’ve entered all of that information correctly, accept the terms and conditions and the privacy policy and click the “Join LifeMiles” button on the bottom of the page.

You’ll then be assigned a unique LifeMiles membership number, which we’d recommend writing down somewhere. You’ll need this number to sign in to your account and to earn miles in the future.

Ho To Earn Avianca LifeMiles Miles

As a member of the Avianca LifeMiles program, you’re eligible to both earn and redeem miles. However, before you purchase an award flight through this program, you’ll need to accumulate enough miles for that flight.

There are many different ways to earn miles through the Avianca LifeMiles program. However, some earning methods are considerably more effective than others. In the following sections, we’re going to look at a few of the most effective ways to earn miles through this program.

Transfer Credit Card Points

The Avianca LifeMiles program is a transfer partner of three major credit card rewards programs: American Express Membership Rewards, Capital One Rewards and Citi ThankYou Rewards. All three of these programs allow you to transfer points to Avianca LifeMiles at a 1:1 ratio and transfers typically take only a few minutes to process.

For instance, if you had 60,000 American Express Membership Rewards points in your Amex account, you could transfer those points at a 1:1 ratio and receive 60,000 miles in your LifeMiles account within seconds.

However, it’s worth noting that Amex charges a fee of $0.0006 per point (with a maximum fee of $99) for transfers to frequent flyer programs. So, for that 60,000-point transfer, you’d have to pay a fee of $36. Capital One Rewards and Citi ThankYou Rewards, on the other hand, don’t charge any such transfer fees.

Spending on Avianca LifeMiles Co-Branded Credit Cards

Another very effective way to earn miles through the Avianca LifeMiles program is to sign up for an Avianca co-branded credit card. In 2024, Avianca unveiled two co-branded credit cards at two different price-points: the Avianca LifeMiles American Express® Card ($99 annual fee) and the Avianca LifeMiles American Express® Elite Card ($249 annual fee).

With both of these cards, you can earn miles by making everyday purchases and also receive other valuable perks in the Avianca LifeMiles program. The following table includes everything you need to know about these two co-branded cards:

As you can see, both of these cards include an automatic upgrade to LifeMiles Silver elite status. This status comes with the following benefits:

• Avianca airport lounge access
• Premium seat selection
• Select upgrade options
• Additional checked bag
• 30% bonus miles
• Priority check-in
• Priority boarding

In addition to the benefits and bonuses described above, both of these credit cards offer a welcome bonus for new cardmembers who spend a certain amount on their card in a certain time frame after account opening. For instance, here’s the current welcome offer from the Avianca LifeMiles Elite Card:

As you can see, this bonus alone is enough for several award flights and enough to offset this card’s annual fee for multiple years.

So, if you use the Avianca LifeMiles program often and you want to quickly earn a large sum of miles, signing up for one of these Avianca co-branded credit cards might be a great move.

Flying With Avianca and Partner Airlines

Another effective way to earn miles in the Avianca LifeMiles program is to take paid flights on Avianca or one of its airline partners. To earn miles on these flights, you’ll need to select Avianca LifeMiles as your frequent flyer program of choice and enter your membership number either when making your booking or when checking in for your flight.

When flying on Avianca, the number of miles you’ll earn depends on the price of your base fare, the fare type, the price of any travel extras you purchased and your status in the LifeMiles program. Here’s how many miles per $1 spent you’ll earn with each Avianca fare type:

• 0X LifeMiles on XS fares
• 3X LifeMiles on S fares
• 5X LifeMiles on M fares
• 7X LifeMiles on L fares
• 7X LifeMiles on XXL fares

For example, if you spent $300 on an S fare, you’d earn 900 miles ($300 x 3 = 900 miles).

You’ll also earn 5X miles per $1 spent on certain travel extras when flying with Avianca, including seat selection, Avianca Lounge access, travel assistance, empty seats and upgrades to business class.

And, if you have elite status in the Avianca LifeMiles program, you’ll earn bonus miles on all paid flights with Avianca. You’ll earn 30% bonus miles as a Silver member, 50% bonus miles as a Gold member and 70% bonus miles as a Diamond member.

You can also earn miles with the Avianca LifeMile program by flying with any other Star Alliance airline. Here’s the current list of Star Alliance member airlines:

In addition to the Star Alliance partners listed above, Avianca has some non-Star Alliance partners with which you can earn miles. These partners include the following:

• Clic
• GOL
• Iberia

Each of Avianca’s airline partners (both Star Alliance and non-Star Alliance partners) has its own earnings chart that dictates how many miles you’ll earn on a partner flight. You can view these charts by going to the “Travel” page on the Avianca LifeMiles website, scrolling down to the “Flight partners” section and clicking on the partner that you want to fly with. You can then use these charts to calculate the number of miles you’d earn on a flight.

How To Book Award Flights Through Avianca LifeMiles

Now that you know how to join the Avianca LifeMiles program and how to quickly earn enough miles to book an award flight, let’s discuss the actual process of making an award flight booking.

The easiest way to access the Avianca LifeMiles award flight booking portal is to go directly to lifemiles.com. However, you can also access this portal by going to the Avianca website homepage, clicking the “LifeMiles” tab from the top toolbar, selecting the “LifeMiles program” option from the drop-down menu and then clicking the “Sign up” button on that page.

Once you arrive at the LifeMiles website homepage, click the “Log In” button in the top-right corner. You can then choose to log in to your LifeMiles account using either your membership number or a linked Google or Apple account.

After you’ve logged in, you should be automatically sent to the “Flights” page, where you’ll see the award flight booking tool. At this point, searching for an award flight is similar to searching for a cash flight.

Start by entering your departure airport and arrival airport, your travel dates, the number of adults and children on your itinerary and your preferred cabin class. When choosing your travel dates, you should be able to tell on which dates there are available flights on your route because those dates will be marked in blue on the calendar. You can also choose whether you want to search for a one-way, round-trip or multi-city itinerary by clicking the corresponding bubble.

When all of your search information is correct, click the blue “Find Flights” button to conduct your search. You’ll then be shown all of the flights that match your search parameters. If there are Avianca-operated flights that match your search parameters, you’ll automatically only be shown those flight results. However, if you click the checkbox for “Star Alliance” or “Other airlines” near the top of the search results, you’ll also be able to see any flight results operated by partners.

You can also filter these flight results by the number of stops (nonstop, one stop or two or more stops) or by departure time (morning, afternoon or overnight). And, you can choose to sort the results by required miles, departing time, number of stops or flight duration.

When you find a flight that suits your needs, add that flight to your itinerary by clicking on the rate in the “Regular mileage” column next to your desired flight. There’s another column to the right of the “Regular mileage” column that’s labeled for “LifeMiles+.” This rate is only applicable if you have a paid subscription to LifeMiles+ (or the Avianca LifeMiles American Express® Elite Card, which comes with a LifeMiles+ subscription).

Once you click on the “Regular mileage” rate, any available cabin classes for that flight will appear as well as the required miles for that class. You can add the flight to your itinerary by clicking on your desired cabin class. Repeat this process for your return flight if you’re flying round-trip.

After you’ve selected your flights, you’ll be asked to confirm your itinerary and the total required miles as well as the total taxes and fees. If this all looks good, proceed to the next page, where you’ll need to provide some personal information about any travelers on your itinerary, including name, date of birth, gender, email and phone number. You’ll also have the option to select your seats and add any travel extras.

Finally, you’ll need to enter payment information to cover any applicable taxes and fees. Once you’ve added your payment method, confirm your award flight booking and receive your confirmation number. You’ll need this confirmation number to check in to your flight. You’ll also receive a confirmation email containing this number at the email address you provided.

Once you’ve confirmed your flight booking, the required LifeMiles should be instantly deducted from your LifeMiles account balance. It’s worth noting that Avianca LifeMiles has pretty inflexible rules when it comes to canceling an award flight booking, and most refunds require you to pay a fee of at least $50 (and sometimes as much as $200). So, before you make an award flight booking through Avianca LifeMiles, you should be certain that you want to take that flight.

The Bottom Line

The Avianca LifeMiles program is well worth paying attention to for U.S.-based travelers. For one, the program is a transfer partner of American Express Membership Rewards, Capital One Rewards and Citi ThankYou Rewards, which makes it easy to earn a lot of miles quickly. Plus, since the LifeMiles program uses fixed award charts to price many of its award flights, you can often find outsized-value redemptions through this program. And Avianca LifeMiles doesn’t add fuel surcharges to award bookings, keeping out-of-pocket costs low.

Unfortunately, this program isn’t what it used to be as Avianca LifeMiles has recently raised award rates on many of its routes, leading to an overall devaluation of the program. And, if you want to get a refund for an award flight booking through this program, you could end up paying a hefty fee (whereas many other frequent flyer programs offer free cancellations and refunds up to 24 hours before your flight).

Nonetheless, Avianca LifeMiles is often the best program out there for booking certain Star Alliance awards. So, it’s definitely worth getting to know how this program functions. And, if you ever need assistance navigating the award booking process, you can refer to the step-by-step instructions in this article.