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%, forcing points/miles enthusiasts to look elsewhere for good deals on Star Alliance award flights. And, for a while, the Avianca LifeMiles program was a great place to find good value. Unfortunately, in August 2024, the Avianca LifeMiles program also devalued its partner flight awards, making it increasingly harder to find good deals on Star Alliance award flights.

The Avianca LifeMiles program increased award rates for select partner airlines on select routes by as much as 50%, mostly on long-haul flights from North America to North Asia or Europe. However, award prices for certain other partner flights decreased by as much as 25%. But, disappointingly, for the most part, these changes have made award travel more expensive through the Avianca LifeMiles program.

Nonetheless, there’s still a lot to love about the Avianca LifeMiles program. LifeMiles are fairly easy to earn, as the program is a 1:1 transfer partner of several major credit card rewards programs, including American Express Membership Rewards, Capital One Rewards and Citi ThankYou Rewards. And Avianca doesn’t levy fuel surcharges on award fights, which keeps out-of-pocket costs low.

Plus, many of the best redemptions available through the Avianca LifeMiles program weren’t affected by the recent devaluations. Specifically, you can still find short-haul United Airlines flights for just 6,500 miles one-way. So, despite the recent devaluation, it’s definitely still worth familiarizing yourself with the Avianca LifeMiles 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

In May 2024, Avianca teamed up with financial tech company Cardless to offer two co-branded credit cards for U.S.-based consumers, the Avianca LifeMiles American Express® Card ($99 annual fee; see rates and fees) and the Avianca LifeMiles American Express® Elite Card ($249 annual fee; see rates and fees).

With the Avianca LifeMiles American Express® Card you’ll earn 2X miles on Avianca airlines or LifeMiles purchases, dining and groceries, and 1X on everything else. With the Avianca LifeMiles American Express® Elite Card you’ll earn 3X miles on Avianca airlines or LifeMiles purchases, 2X on dining and all other travel and 1X on everything else. With the Elite card you also get perks like 500 bonus miles per month automatically, 10% miles back on Star Alliance flight redemptions, up to 25% redemption discount on Avianca airlines flights and more.

You can learn more about these two U.S.-based credit cards on the Avianca LifeMiles credit card page.

There are also several Avianca co-branded credit cards available in countries across Central America and South America. You can learn more about those on the LifeMiles website.

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. 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. Normally, Avianca charges a fixed rate of 3.3 cents per mile regardless of how many miles you purchase at once. And, since you can rarely get more than 3.3 cents per mile in redemption value out of LifeMiles, buying Avianca LifeMiles at the normal rate is almost never a good idea.

However, occasionally, the Avianca LifeMiles program will run special bonus offers for purchases of LifeMiles. And, in these cases, purchasing LifeMiles can actually be a very savvy move. For instance, from August 22 to September 19, 2024, Avianca ran a promotion that offered up to 160% bonus miles for all LifeMiles purchases. So, if you were to buy 60,000 LifeMiles during this promotion (which would cost you $1,980), you’d receive a bonus of 96,000 miles for a total of 156,000 miles.

Thus, with this 160% bonus from the promotion, you’d be paying about 1.3 cents per mile. And, in many cases, you can get more than 1.3 cents per mile in value when redeeming LifeMiles for award flights (as will be demonstrated later in this article in the “Award Flights” section), particularly award flights in business class.

So, if you’re looking to book a business class flight on a Star Alliance airline, it might be worth seeing if Avianca is selling miles at a promotional rate. In many cases, it might be a great move to purchase LifeMiles and then immediately redeem them for a business class flight rather than purchasing that flight directly with cash.

Avianca also has a subscription service called Club LifeMiles which essentially rewards you with a monthly sum of LifeMiles for paying a monthly fee. Plus, if you also have an Avianca co-branded credit card, you’ll have your miles earnings from your credit card matched one-to-one (up to a monthly limit) as part of your Club LifeMiles subscription.

Paying for Club LifeMiles offers a much better value than one-time purchases of LifeMiles at the normal rate and that’s not even factoring in the potential extra miles earnings if you have an Avianca credit card. We recommend looking into the Club LifeMiles program and running the numbers if you tend to make award redemptions through the LifeMiles program often and you’re willing to sign up for the Avianca credit card.

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.

There is a Star Alliance award chart published on the Avianca LifeMiles website. However, it seems that this award chart hasn’t been updated in a long time (and several devaluations have occurred during that time). Real award rates can be considerably higher than those listed in this award chart. So, if you wish to know the exact price of a Star Alliance award flight on a specific route, you’ll have to search for it manually through the LifeMiles website.

On the bright side, though, there are still some high-value awards to be found through the Avianca LifeMiles program. Plus, this program doesn’t pass along carrier-imposed surcharges on award flights, keeping out-of-pocket costs low. 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.

Some of the cheapest award flights that you’ll find through the Avianca LifeMiles program are United-operated short-haul flights around North America for just 6,500 miles one-way or 13,000 miles round-trip. There are also plenty of excellent deals on intercontinental premium-cabin award flights in Avianca’s Star Alliance award chart.

On top of that, you can also redeem your LifeMiles for award flights on GOL and Iberia. LifeMiles can be earned but not redeemed for flights with Clic (a regional Colombian airline). GOL and Iberia each have their own LifeMiles award chart, which you can find on the LifeMiles website “Travel” page by scrolling down to the bottom and clicking on the specific partner you wish to travel with and then navigating to the “How to redeem your LifeMiles” section of that partner’s page.

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

One-Way Short-Haul Flights on United Airlines from 6,500 Miles One-Way or 13,000 Round-Trip

Avianca’s Star Alliance award chart divides the United States into three regions. One-way economy flights within these regions (and sometimes between these regions) are typically 6,500 miles one-way or 13,000 miles round-trip. Likewise, you can also find flights between cities in the U.S. and Canada for the same price.

These routes often provide excellent value and are very practical for those who need to fly around North America for work or to visit friends or family. We found a United Airlines-operated round-trip economy flight from San Francisco (SFO) to San Diego (SAN) for just 13,000 miles (plus $11.20 in taxes and fees, which is very low) 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 about $272.

That means that this redemption would yield a value of about 2 cents per mile, which is solid, especially for an economy flight. Plus, this is a great option if you want to use your Avianca miles in a practical way. There are plenty of good 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.

One-Way Flights Between the U.S. and Australia on United Airlines from 40,000 Miles or 80,000 Miles Round-Trip

Cash prices for flights between the U.S. and Australia can often be thousands of dollars, 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 round-trip economy flight between Los Angeles (LAX) and Sydney (SYD) for 80,000 miles (plus about $165 in taxes and fees).

If you were to purchase the same exact flight with cash through the United Airlines website, it would cost you about $1,222.

So, this redemption would yield a value of about 1.3 cents per mile, which is solid 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.

You can also find other flights on these routes that charge lower taxes and fees, but these are typically multi-sector flights that involve a layover.

One-Way Business Class Flights Between the U.S. and Europe on Lufthansa from 69,000 Miles One-Way or 138,000 Miles Round-Trip

While business class flights between the U.S. and Europe were one of the award flight categories affected by the recent devaluation, you can still get fantastic value by booking these types of award flights through the Avianca LifeMiles program. In particular, booking business class award flights on Lufthansa tends to provide great value, as Lufthansa business class flights tend to have very high cash prices.

For instance, we found a Lufthansa-operated round-trip business class flight between Washington, D.C. (IAD) and Frankfurt (FRA) for 138,000 miles (plus about $201 in taxes and fees).

If you were to book the same flights on the same dates with cash through the Lufthansa website, you would have to pay $14,166.

That means that this redemption would yield a value of about 10 cents per mile, which is fantastic. Lufthansa also offers one of the finest business class products in the entire airline industry, so you’ll enjoy your trip from the U.S. to Europe in luxury.

There are several other such Lufthansa business class routes between the U.S. and Europe, and these are undoubtedly among the most high-value ways you can use the Avianca LifeMiles program.

One-Way Business Class Flights Between Honolulu and Japan on ANA from 48,000 Miles One-Way or 96,00 Miles Round-Trip

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 or 96,000 miles round-trip.

For example, we found a round-trip ANA business class award flight from Honolulu (HNL) to Tokyo (HND) for 96,000 miles (plus about $94 in taxes and fees).

If you were to book these same exact flights on the same dates with cash through the ANA website, it would cost you $5,938.

That means that this redemption would yield a value of about 6 cents per mile, which is fantastic.

As you can see, Avianca’s favorable award chart makes it one of the best programs for booking Star Alliance awards. And, 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

Due to the fact that LifeMiles is the frequent flyer program of a Colombian airline, it often gets overlooked by U.S.-based travelers. 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 Aermexico, 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 or Citi ThankYou Rewards, all of which offer a 1:1 transfer ratio.

Unfortunately, in August 2024, Avianca devalued its LifeMiles program by raising award rates on certain routes by as much as 50%. Among the routes affected were business class award flights between the U.S. and Europe, which was one of the best sweet spots in the Avianca LifeMiles program.

Avianca LifeMiles is known for being ridden with technical issues and poor customer service. However, if you’re willing to deal with a little bit of frustration, you should still be able to find high-value redemptions through the LifeMiles program, particularly on short-haul United flights around North America, Lufthansa and United business class flights between the U.S. and Europe (despite the recent devaluation), long-haul United flights between the U.S. and Australia and ANA-operated flights between Hawaii and Japan.