Avianca LifeMiles Program Guide: Everything You Need to Know

In 2023, United Airlines increased award prices offered through its MileagePlus program significantly, with certain award rates increasing by over 100%. So, as United MileagePlus is no longer a good program for booking Star Alliance awards, points/miles enthusiasts have had to look to foreign carriers’ frequent flyer programs for Star Alliance sweet spots. Specifically, LifeMiles, the rewards program of Colombian flag carrier Avianca, is a great program through which to book Star Alliance (and other) awards.

Avianca LifeMiles offers many wonderful sweet spots with Star Alliance partner awards starting at just 6,000 miles, Star Alliance partner business class flights between the U.S. and Europe for just 60,000 miles and Star Alliance partner first class flights between the U.S. and South America for as little as 50,000 miles.

You don’t even need to fly with Avianca to rack up a balance of LifeMiles. You can earn LifeMiles by flying with partner airlines or by making transfers from popular credit card rewards programs such as American Express Membership Rewards, Capital One Rewards Program and Citi ThankYou Rewards.

Unfortunately, the LifeMiles program is known for having poor customer service and a website that’s rife with technical issues. However, if you’re willing to deal with some potential frustration, then you can find some seriously great deals through this program.

In this article, we’ll discuss the Avianca elite status program, the different ways to earn LifeMiles, the different ways to redeem LifeMiles and which of those redemption methods offers the most value per mile.

Avianca LifeMiles Program Overview

Avianca is the largest airline in Colombia and also the country’s flag carrier. The airline’s main hub is in the country’s capital of Bogota and it also has secondary hubs in the cities of Cali, Cartagena and Medellin. The airline was formed under the name SCADTA (which stands for Sociedad Colombo-Alemana de Transportes Aereos) in 1919, making it the second-oldest airline still in existence behind KLM.

In 2012, Avianca became a full member of Star Alliance, a move which significantly expanded its list of airline partners. That list has continued to grow as Star Alliance has added more members. Today, the roster of Star Alliance member airlines is as follows:

LifeMiles can be both earned and redeemed with any of the 26 aforementioned Star Alliance member airlines. On top of that, Avianca has partnerships with Aeromexico, GOL, Iberia and Easyfly. However, earning and redeeming LifeMiles with these partners is limited to certain geographic regions. Additionally, members can earn LifeMiles by flying with Easyfly but cannot redeem LifeMiles for Easyfly-operated flights.

You can also earn qualifying miles toward elite status by flying with either Avianca, Easyfly or a Star Alliance partner. Flying with Aeromexico, GOL and Iberia can’t help you earn elite status with Avianca LifeMiles.

Avianca LifeMiles Elite Status Program

Avianca’s elite status program currently has four tiers: Red Plus, Silver, Gold and Diamond. You can achieve each of these tiers by earning a certain number of elite status qualifying miles in a calendar year (from January 1st to December 31st). On top of that, a certain number of the qualifying miles that you earn must be earned on Avianca flights or Avianca additional services.

You’ll earn a different number of qualifying miles for different kinds of spending. Here are the rates at which you’ll accrue qualifying miles for different categories:

• Earn 1 qualifying mile per 1 LifeMile earned on flights with Avianca (base miles), additional services from Avianca or flights with Star Alliance members.
• Earn 1 qualifying mile per 2 LifeMiles earned on Avianca LifeMiles credit and debit cards, Club LifeMiles, LifeMiles Pay, commercial partners, miles purchases, hotels and rental cars.
• Earn 1 qualifying mile per 20 LifeMiles earned on bonus miles, miles transfers, points to miles and others.

Once again, in order to achieve a certain elite status, you’ll need to accrue a certain number of qualifying miles and a certain number of those miles must have been accrued from flights with Avianca and/or Avianca additional services.

The following table includes how many qualifying miles you’ll need to achieve each elite status tier as well as the benefits you’ll be entitled to at each status tier:

As you can see, most of the benefits included with Avianca elite status are geared toward people who fly with Avianca frequently. If you don’t fly with Avianca often, the only benefits that are of real use to you will be the Star Alliance partner benefits.

How to Earn Avianca LifeMiles

You can earn LifeMiles either by flying with Avianca, by flying with one of its Star Alliance partners or by flying with one of Avianca’s other partners in certain regions. However, there are other ways to earn LifeMiles that don’t include flying, such as transferring points from other rewards programs, spending on an Avianca LifeMiles co-branded credit card, booking hotel stays and renting cars.

In the following sections we’ll cover the different ways to earn LifeMiles and which of these ways makes the most sense.

Flying with Avianca

Of course, the most straightforward way to earn Avianca LifeMiles is to take flights with Avianca. The number of LifeMiles that you’ll earn for a specific Avianca flight depends on a few factors: the amount of money that you pay for your base fare, the fare type and whether or not you added any travel extras to your reservation.

Here’s how many miles per dollar you’ll earn with each fare type:

• 0X LifeMiles per $1 spent on XS fares
• 3X LifeMiles per $1 spent on S fares
• 5X LifeMiles per $1 spent on M fares
• 7X LifeMiles per $1 spent on L fares
• 7X LifeMiles per $1 spent on XXL fares

For instance, if you spent $200 on an Avianca flight with an M fare, you’d earn 1,000 LifeMiles. However, if you spent $200 on an Avianca flight with an XXL fare, you’d earn 1,400 LifeMiles.

You can also earn 5X LifeMiles for every $1 spent on certain additional services from Avianca, including seat selection, Avianca Lounge access, travel assistance, empty seats and upgrades to Business Class.

For instance, if you paid $300 for an upgrade to Business Class on an Avianca flight, that would earn you 1,500 LifeMiles.

Flying with Partners

Since Avianca is a member of Star Alliance, you can earn LifeMiles by flying with any member airline of Star Alliance. However, the specific earnings rate will depend on the partner that you’re flying with as each partner has its own earnings chart.

For instance, here is the LifeMiles earnings chart for United Airlines:

As you can see, unlike with Avianca flights (which are based on the amount of money spent), partner flights earn LifeMiles based on the distance and fare code. For example, if you were to take a 1,000-mile flight operated by United in Business class (fare code Z), you’d earn 1,000 LifeMiles. However, if you were to take the same flight in Economy class (fare code T), you would earn 500 LifeMiles.

In addition to earning LifeMiles with Star Alliance partners, you can also earn LifeMiles by flying with Aeromexico, GOL, Iberia and Easyfly. However, with these partners, you can only accrue LifeMiles for flights in certain regions. Here are the eligible regions for each of these partner airlines:

• Aeromexico—flights within Mexico, North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia
• GOL—flights within Brazil, South America, United States, Mexico and the Caribbean
• Iberia—flights within Spain, Central America, between Spain and Central America, Spain and Colombia, Spain and Ecuador, Spain and Peru and between Madrid (Barajas) and Paris (Orly)
• Easyfly—flights within Colombia

In order to earn LifeMiles on partner flights, you’ll need to select Avianca LifeMiles as your frequent flyer program of choice at the time of booking and enter your LifeMiles membership number.

Transfer Partners

For most U.S.-based travelers, the best way to boost your balance of LifeMiles is going to be to transfer points from one of Avianca’s several credit card transfer partners. Avianca is partnered with several major credit card rewards programs including American Express Membership Rewards, Capital One Rewards Program and Citi ThankYou Rewards, all of which transfer at a 1:1 ratio.

These credit card rewards programs will occasionally offer limited-time transfer bonuses for transferring points to certain airline partners. So, it’s worth checking to see if your credit card issuer is offering a transfer bonus for Avianca LifeMiles.

You can also transfer points from several different hotel rewards programs to Avianca LifeMiles. Unfortunately, none of these programs offer very favorable transfer ratios. Still, here are the different hotel rewards programs that allow transfers to Avianca LifeMiles and their respective transfer ratios:

As you can see, all of these transfer ratios are very poor. You’re much better off spending those hotel points in their native programs than transferring them to Avianca LifeMiles.

Spending with Avianca Co-Branded Credit Cards

Up until March 2022, Avianca offered two co-branded credit cards that were available to U.S. citizens, both of which were issued by Banco Popular de Puerto Rico. However, these cards are no longer accepting new applicants. So, as of right now, there are no Avianca co-branded credit cards available to U.S. citizens.

There are, however, several Avianca co-branded credit cards available in countries across Central America and South America.

Booking Hotel Stays

Through Avianca’s LifeMiles Hotels portal (powered by Booking.com) you can earn LifeMiles for making hotel bookings in cash at over 500,000 hotels across the globe. To do so, you can simply visit hotels.lifemiles.com and enter your destination, travel dates and number of guests. Then you can select the “Pay cash and earn miles” option and hit the “Search” button.

LifeMiles Hotels will then present you with a list of options that match your search query and tell you how many LifeMiles you could earn for completing each booking.

It’s unclear how LifeMiles Hotels determines how many miles you’ll earn for a particular booking as there doesn’t seem to be any consistent miles-per-dollar earnings rate. So, if you want to know how many miles you could earn for a specific hotel booking, you’ll just have to search for that booking through LifeMiles Hotels.

Car Rentals

Avianca also has a rental car booking portal called LifeMiles Cars (powered by Rocket Travel) that allows you to earn LifeMiles for booking rental cars around the world. To do so, you can visit cars.lifemiles.com and enter your destination, pick-up time and drop-off time. Then, you can press the “Search” button and you’ll see a list of results that match your search query. From there, you can filter for price, location and type of vehicle.

The number of LifeMiles you earn on your vehicle depends on the type of vehicle you rent, how long your rental period is and the cash price of your rental.

Buying Merchandise

Avianca has partnerships with a variety of retail partners that allow you to earn between 1X and 5X LifeMiles per $1 spent on merchandise. Unfortunately for U.S. readers most of these partners are located in Central America or South America. You can view the complete list of shopping partners on the LifeMiles website here.

Buying Miles

As a LifeMiles member, you also have the option to buy miles. However, doing so is almost never a good idea. Avianca charges a fixed rate of 3.3 cents per mile regardless of how many miles you purchase at once. Since you can rarely get more than 3.3 cents per mile in redemption value out of LifeMiles, this is a very bad deal.

The minimum number of LifeMiles that can be purchased per transaction is 1,000 and you can’t purchase more than 200,000 LifeMiles per calendar year.

You may want to consider buying miles if you’re 1,000 or 2,000 miles short of a specific redemption. But, even in that case, you may want to just pay with cash and save your LifeMiles for a future redemption.

Avianca also has a subscription service called Club LifeMiles which essentially rewards you with a monthly sum of LifeMiles for paying a monthly fee.

While paying for Club LifeMiles does offer a better value than one-time purchases of LifeMiles, it’s still a bad deal and should be avoided.

How to Redeem Avianca LifeMiles

There are many ways that you can redeem Avianca LifeMiles, some of which provide far more value per mile than others. In general, the best way to maximize the value of your LifeMiles is going to be to redeem them for flights operated by Avianca or one of its airline partners.

In the following sections, we’ll cover the different ways that you can redeem LifeMiles and which of these redemption methods offer the best value per mile on average.

Award Flights

As Avianca is a member of Star Alliance, you can also use your miles to book award flights with any member of Star Alliance. Avianca prices Star Alliance awards (including Avianca-operated award flights) using a single award chart that splits the world into 14 regions. Star Alliance award prices are based on which of these regions you’re flying to and from as well as what cabin class you’re flying in.

One important thing to note about Avianca LifeMiles is that this program doesn’t pass along carrier-imposed surcharges on award flights. This makes Avianca a great program through which to book award flights on airlines that typically levy large surcharges, such as Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines.

You can view Avianca’s Star Alliance award chart here.

The cheapest award flights that you’ll find on Star Alliance partners are Economy flights within Mexico for 7,000 miles one-way. You can fly many routes within the United States for just 7,500 miles one-way. There are also plenty of excellent deals on intercontinental premium-cabin award flights in Avianca’s Star Alliance award chart.

Additionally, you can redeem your LifeMiles for award flights on Aeromexico, GOL and Iberia. LifeMiles can be earned but not redeemed through Easyfly. Aeromexico, GOL and Iberia each have their own LifeMiles award chart, which you can find on the LifeMiles website here by clicking on the specific partner and then navigating to the “How to redeem your LifeMiles” section.

Notably, you can book one-way economy flights within Brazil for just 6,000 LifeMiles. Other than that, though, you’re usually better off redeeming your LifeMiles for Star Alliance awards.

Here are a few sweet spots in the Avianca LifeMiles program that you should look out for:

One-Way U.S. Domestic Flights on United Airlines from 7,500 Miles

Avianca’s Star Alliance award chart divides the United States into three regions and one-way economy flights within these regions are always 7,500 miles. For instance, you can fly from Florida to Texas, from Oregon to Colorado or from New York to Ohio for 7,500 miles one-way.

These routes often provide excellent value. We found a United Airlines-operated one-way economy flight from Portland (PDX) to Albuquerque (ABQ) for just 7,500 miles (plus $5.60 in taxes and fees) through the Avianca LifeMiles program.

If you were to book the exact same flight with cash through the United Airlines website, it would cost you $270.

That means that this redemption would yield a value of 3.5 cents per mile, which is outstanding, especially for an economy flight. There are plenty of amazing deals such as this one on U.S. domestic award flights operated by United Airlines through Avianca LifeMiles that offer great value and are super practical for U.S.-based travelers.

Flights within the same region of the U.S. are 15,000 miles in business class one-way and 35,000 miles in first class one-way, both of which provide great value per mile if you’re able to find availability.

One-Way Flights Between the U.S. and Australia on United Airlines from 40,000 Miles

Flights between the U.S. and Australia can often be in the thousands, even in economy class. However, Avianca’s Star Alliance award chart starts pricing for one-way economy flights between the U.S. and Australia (as well as New Zealand and Tahiti) at just 40,000 miles.

For instance, we found a United-operated one-way economy flight between Los Angeles (LAX) and Sydney (SYD) for 40,000 miles (plus $46.70 in taxes and fees).

If you were to purchase the same exact flight with cash through the United Airlines website, it would cost you $1,436.

This redemption would yield a value of about 3.5 cents per mile, which is fantastic for an economy flight. In theory, you could probably find even more value per mile by booking this route in business class or first class. Unfortunately, it’s notoriously hard to find premium cabin award space through Avianca LifeMiles.

One-Way Business Class Flights Between the U.S. and Europe on United Airlines from 60,000 Miles

According to the Avianca Star Alliance award chart, you can book one-way business class awards from the U.S. to the “Europe 1” region for as low as 60,000 miles. You can also book one-way business class flights from the U.S. to the “Europe 2” and “Europe 3” regions for as little as 63,000 miles.

For instance, we found a United-operated one-way business class flight between Washington, D.C. (IAD) and Frankfurt (FRA) for 63,000 miles (plus $26.70 in taxes and fees).

If you were to book the same flight on the same date with cash through the United Airlines website, you would have to pay $6,897.

That means that this redemption would yield a value of over 10 cents per mile, which is amazing. If you’re looking to fly United’s Polaris business class, booking through Avianca LifeMiles is often one of the most affordable ways to do so.

One-Way Business Class Flights Between Honolulu and Japan on ANA from 48,000 Miles

One of the best sweet spots in the Avianca LifeMiles program is for business class flights between Honolulu and Tokyo operated by ANA, starting at just 48,000 miles one-way according to Avianca’s Star Alliance award chart.

For example, we found a one-way business class award from Honolulu (HNL) to Tokyo (HND) for 48,000 miles (plus $26.70).

If you were to book this same exact flight with cash through the ANA website, it would cost you $6,068.20.

That means that this redemption would yield a value of about 12.5 cents per mile, which is incredible.

As you can see, Avianca’s favorable award chart makes it one of the best programs for booking Star Alliance awards. If you have an American Express, Capital One or Citi credit card, this is a program that you should look into often when transferring your points to buy award flights.

Hotel Stays

Through the LifeMiles Hotels portal (powered by Booking.com), you can redeem your LifeMiles for hotel stays at thousands of hotels across the globe. To do so, visit hotels.lifemiles.com and enter your destination, travel dates and number of guests and select the “Pay with my miles” option. You’ll be presented with a list of hotels that match your search query and their respective rates in LifeMiles.

Unfortunately, redeeming your LifeMiles this way typically provides very poor value. For instance, you could book a one-night stay at the PARKROYAL COLLECTION Marina Bay, Singapore for 60,400 miles.

Alternatively, you could book the same stay with cash through the LifeMiles Hotels portal for $350.

At that rate, this redemption would yield a value of about 0.6 cents per mile, which isn’t very good, especially when considering the great value you could get out of your LifeMiles by redeeming them for award flights.

Rental Cars

You can also redeem your miles through the LifeMiles Cars portal (powered by Rocket Travel). Visit cars.lifemiles.com and search your pick-up and drop-off times and your location and select the ”Pay with my miles” option. You’ll be presented with a list of rental options and their respective prices in LifeMiles.

Redeeming your miles this way also doesn’t provide very good value per mile. For instance, we found a rental at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport for 5,147 miles per day.

If you were to book the same rental with cash, it would cost you $32 per day.

Thus, this redemption would give you a value of about 0.6 cents per mile, which isn’t very good. You’re better off paying for your car rentals in cash and saving your LifeMiles for award flights.

Buying Merchandise

Avianca gives you the option to redeem LifeMiles with certain retail partners. However, most of these partners are located in Colombia or other countries in Latin America. So, this option isn’t very applicable to U.S.-based travelers. Plus, redeeming your miles this way provides very poor value.

Still, if you live in Colombia or happen to be traveling there, you can redeem LifeMiles in-store at certain retailers such as Adidas, Totto and Bosi. Some of these retail partners require you to present your ID, LifeMiles number and physical LifeMiles membership card in order to make a redemption. Other retail partners allow redemptions using a QR code in the LifeMiles Mobile App.

Make Purchases on Amazon.com

You can use your miles to make purchases online through Amazon.com by downloading an online extension for Google Chrome. Simply search for products on Amazon.com as you normally would and click the “Pay with miles” button on the checkout page.

As to be expected, redeeming your LifeMiles through Amazon.com provides fairly poor value and you’re typically much better off redeeming your miles for award flights.

Donate LifeMiles

Like most frequent flyer programs, Avianca LifeMiles gives you the option to donate your miles to benefit one of their partner charities. Avianca partners with several charities across several different causes, including:

• Infancy and childhood
• Humanitarian aid
• Inclusive ventures
• Organ transport
• Employment inclusion
• Gender equity
• Environmental and animal care
• Human rights

There are no minimums or maximums for the number of miles you can donate. So, if you want to use your LifeMiles to make the world a better place, donating them to one of Avianca’s partner charities is a great way to do so.

Avianca LifeMiles Expiration

Every frequent flyer program has unique rules about when its miles expire. In the case of Avianca LifeMiles, your miles will expire after just 12 months of account inactivity. So, you’ll want to make sure that you perform some sort of activity on your account every 12 months in order to prevent your miles from expiring.

Luckily, booking flights isn’t the only thing that’s considered account activity. According to Avianca’s policies, you simply need to “make one accrual transaction every 12 months” to extend the expiration date on your miles for another 12 months.

So, if your miles are in danger of expiring, you might want to consider downloading the LifeMiles Google Chrome extension for Amazon.com and making a low-cost purchase with miles. This redemption may not provide great value, but it’ll prevent your miles from expiring for another 12 months.

The Bottom Line

U.S.-based travelers often overlook LifeMiles because it is the frequent flyer program of a Colombian airline. However, LifeMiles is a program that’s full of high-value redemptions thanks to its favorable award charts and the fact that it doesn’t pass on carrier-imposed surcharges. In many cases, LifeMiles is the best program with which to book award flights on airlines such as Austrian Airlines, Lufthansa, United Airlines and many other Star Alliance partners.

You can also accrue LifeMiles by flying with any Star Alliance member airline as well as with Aeromexico, GOL, Iberia and Easyfly. But, for most, the best way to boost your balance is going to be to transfer credit card points from American Express Membership Rewards, Capital One Rewards Program or Citi ThankYou Rewards, all of which offer a 1:1 transfer ratio.

Unfortunately, Avianca LifeMiles is known for poor customer service and a website ridden with technical issues. However, if you’re willing to deal with a little bit of frustration, you can find some amazing deals on award flights through this program.