lifemiles transfer bonus

LifeMiles: 15% Transfer Bonus from American Express

From May 3rd to May 31st, 2021, Avianca’s LifeMiles will give you a 15% bonus on transferred American Express Membership Reward points.

This is a pretty common offer, though there is one difference this time: The bonus miles are being awarded by Avianca rather than Amex. Meaning that in a normal transfer bonus, if you sent 10,000 MR points, Amex would send over 11,500.

This time, Amex is sending over exactly what you say to and LifeMiles is adding the bonus. They say you’ll get both the base points and bonus within 24 hours.

Terms:

  • This Promotion is valid only for the transfer of American Express Membership Rewards to LifeMiles from May 3rd, 2021 (12:00 AM GMT-6) to May 31st, 2021 (12:59 PM GMT-6).
  • A minimum transfer of 1000 Membership Rewards point is required.
  • You must be previously registered as a LifeMiles member in order to participate in this promotion, you can sign up as a member at LifeMiles.com.
  • During the promotion, the member will receive a 15% bonus over the Membership rewards transfer rate. The bonus miles and the transferred miles will be reflected in the account statement in two different transactions.
  • LifeMiles earned by transferring and the bonus Miles earned with this promotion do not apply to obtain or maintain the LifeMiles Elite Status.
  • Transferred LifeMiles as well as the bonus miles will be accrued no later than 24 hours after American Express Membership Rewards reports the request of miles transfer to LifeMiles.

MilesTalk Musings

keep in mind that Avianca’s LifeMiles can be an absolute nightmare to deal with and during COVID they have been worse than normal, with people unable to reach them at all.

Citi had a 25% bonus in January and even at 25% I was advising against any transfers unless you had a pretty firm booking to make.

Here’s what I’d said then:

There are some major pros and major cons to Lifemiles

The pros are that they don’t tack on fuel surcharges, meaning that you can book a First Class Lufthansa flight without any of Lufthansa’s own surcharges which can top $500 one way and for just 87,000 Lifemiles (versus, for example, 113,000 United miles for the same flight).  63,000 miles for Business.

Cons include how hard it is to make any changes at all once ticketed and that the site sometimes shows phantom award availability.

Especially noteworthy is how abysmal is has been for people to deal with Lifemiles during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hours long phone calls (if you can get someone at all), run arounds, months and months for refunds on cancellations, and even service fees deducted from refunds. Trying to make changes may even be worse than cancellations.

I would keep this in mind should you have a Star Alliance flight to book, but I wouldn’t advise transferring speculatively. Especially now.

Other Notes on Avianca Lifemiles

American Express Rose Gold Card
Get 60,000 Bonus Membership Rewards points after spending $4,000 on purchases within the first 6 months on an American Express® Gold Card or Rose Gold Card. Earn 4X points on dining and U.S. supermarkets (up to $25,000 annually, then 1X) plus get $10 monthly dining statement credits and $10 in monthly Uber Cash. Terms apply. Get This Offer

Thoughts?

Let me know below in the comments, on Twitter, or in the private MilesTalk Facebook group. And don't forget to follow me on Instagram for all sorts of tips on miles, points, credit cards, and travel.

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New to all of this? My “introduction to miles and points” book, MilesTalk: Live Your Wildest Travel Dreams Using Miles and Points is available on Amazon and at major booksellers.

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