Let's discuss Avianca Lifemiles

[navam]

So, I recently got access to seats.aero and was playing around with it (mainly to figure out a family euro trip) and came across Avianca Lifemiles (frankly was not aware they existed)
Now what I see I can book direct Air india flights from here to just about any popular place in europe for around 25k miles + barely any tax vs on United it starts at about 33k + taxes.
If i transfer points from Infinia Avianca is 1:1 and united is 1:0.5, so it just seems stupid to consider united (apart from the fact that I can dump my magnus points into united)

Sooo, whats the catch here guys? Why is Avianca mostly ignored? What am I missing?

 

[miles_guy]

High cancellation fee, very difficult customer support is what I have heard

 

[navam]

Thanks for sharing what you have heard, doesn't sound like a deal breaker just yet, has anyone here successfully flown using avianca lifemiles on this forum?

 

[navam]

Bumping in hopes of getting more eyes

 

[sxchzy]

tag people so that if anyone has used it they may be able to give their review

 

[navam]

tag people so that if anyone has used it they may be able to give their review

Lol whom do I tag? Any suggestions? you and 4 other usernames are all I know on this forum

 

[sxchzy]

tag whoever appears when you type @

 

[gurbina]

I've been using Avianca for years.

No issues, usually support via email is very quick within a day. Over the phone is also okayish, they do have some fees like other airlines for award cancelations and others (Phone booking service fee), nothing out of the ordinary or expensive and no deal breakers.

Possibly the biggest downside is availability in general and their award search portal, CS agents sometimes are able to find space that isn't shown on the Avianca website.
But again it's mostly issues with the awards portal, if you select Star Alliance partners on search or Smart it won't find sometimes space on partners, but upon selecting the specific partner directly it does find them.

Again, they're not amazing but they are no slouch. I've seen on FlyerTalk issues with the flight confirmation on awards but it does seem to always go through sometimes it just isn't clear or hard to find the booking when booking on partner airlines. I booked a business class to Japan on Asiana recently and the issue is that Avianca website doesn't show a lot of info and no services available to do on the booking, but depending on the airline booked there's ways to fetch the itinerary and select seats among other services on the partner airline.

I've also used miles to book hotels with miles and I've found fairly decent deals, I although it's harder to get value out of it.

Same as other airlines, they have transfer offers up to 100% miles and lately 25% only. Upon redeeming on flights you'll also get mile discounts every now and then. Same with promotions for earning more miles on a variety of ways which are often fairly good.

If you want info about this program and issues , flyertalk is your best friend.

 

[miles_guy]

Thanks for the detailed info...

 

[navam]

Thank you very much @gurbina all the info I needed in one place!