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Dynamically Priced United Awards on Avianca LifeMiles
This is…. interesting.
Facebook group member Julian B. called my attention to what looked at first glance to be worrying – but maybe is just a poor additional redemption option.
When he first wrote in, I immediately checked some partner award space. Lufthansa to Europe in Business was still an even 63,000 miles, so I calmed down a bit.
He mentioned he was seeing a new style of booking engine and random prices on United, so I dug in to that, settling on a route of IAH-EWR on Dec 25th (figuring there would be more award space on Christmas Day).
What appears to be happening is that if there is United Saver / Partner award space, it will sell you that as usual – 12,500 miles in coach, plus their booking fees.
But you’ll also see all United flights serving the route listed with a button that says “More Fare Options.”
This takes you to an entirely new search interface which will show only United flights for that say. The pricing is all over the map, but it appears to be selling you a cash fare using a mix of Lifemiles and cash.
I wanted to find which flights had confirmed saver space and which didn’t to compare, and so I used Expert Flyer. I used flight UA 557 which showed 0 saver seats.
Note how the fare rules on this Lifemiles Cash + Miles fare is a revenue fare.
The cash + miles fares do not at all seem to be worth considering.
See this comparison of UA Cash, UA Miles and Lifemiles:
You would do much better simply buying the cash fare or paying United’s dynamic mileage rates (which do not come with co-pays).
For a cash fare on United (non-basic) it’s $194. With United miles it’s 18,900 miles. For Lifemiles, it’s $163 + 13,243 Lifemiles. Lousy deal for sure!
I thought this could be interesting for United’s Business class fares. Could it perhaps be a sweet spot?
Well, it doesn’t appear that Avianca has finished building that into the booking mechanism as I couldn’t find a First/Business Class fare that didn’t product this:
Bottom Line
For now this just seems to be a new option to safely ignore.
But, could this be a harbinger of new partner dynamic pricing later? Even for saver awards? We have no idea – but it’s another great reminder to never buy miles or, generally, to speculatively transfer during a transfer bonus unless you are spending them the same day.
Miles generally do not get more valuable in time, only less.
Thoughts?
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Follow-up to this older piece. Been trying to book international and domestic flights on LifeMiles and coming up with zero options. None. Not one available flight anywhere. Only things I can find are flights to South America on Avianca itself. And the points required are now 113,000+ for business class mco to eze, for example. Hope this is just a glitch. Any insights? … And thanks for your work on this site, Dave. Appreciated.
Lifemiles searches are EXTREMELY frustrating. This happens. I would start by searching United to see if you see a particular Star Alliance flight that *should* be available. Then when you search at Lifemiles, select that exact airline only from the Smart Search drop down. If still nothing, you’re SOL.