ACT FAST! Award Travel Anywhere For The Cheapest I’ve Seen In A While!
Many of you know that I’m one of the founders of Milepoint, a community of frequent travelers. I’ve enjoyed helping build the community over the past few years and we’re now entering the next chapter of its history. You’ll see the rebranded site as InsideFlyer.com today.
As part of that launch there are many exciting details. One of my favorites is the greatest offer in a while for purchasing Star Alliance miles and a special one for redeeming. I don’t recall a better offer in quite some time.
Avianca LifeMiles will be offering a huge discount on buying miles for InsideFlyer members. They’ll be offering 2.5 miles for the price of 1, and only for a very short time. That means super cheap award travel. Here are the particulars:
- You need to be enrolled in Avianca LifeMiles. The last day to register and be eligible for this promotion is October 6th, 2015.
- Registration will be open from today (October 2nd) through October 6th, 2015.
- Starting on October 5, 2015 you’ll be able to buy LifeMiles at a price of 2.5 to 1.
- You’ll be able to redeem those miles for up to 50% off the normal price for Star Alliance awards all over the world.
As long as you register for the promotion by October 4th, you’ll be eligible to buy miles on October 5th. After that, you’ll have to wait 24 hours after your registration to purchase.
This represents a phenomenal opportunity. Buy miles cheaply and use them to get to anywhere the Star Alliance can take you. That’s way beyond Avianca. You can use United, Lufthansa, ANA, Turkish and more. Not only do you buy the miles cheaper than I’ve ever seen them offered by a current Star Alliance carrier, but you can redeem for less. This link will tell you more about the offer to redeem at big discounts.
Think of it like someone allowing you to buy a US dollar for 90 cents. You’d take that deal, right? Well, here, they’re letting you buy that dollar for a lot less, consider the 2.5:1 ration on purchasing miles AND the discounts on redemptions.
I doubt you’ll see an offer like this again anytime soon, so be ready when InsideFlyer launches today.
Before you bubble over in excitement it would be wise to explain to your readers there are limits on the destinations available during this promotion.
Roger, too late. Already bubbled over. 🙂
It’s still a pretty darn good bonus even if your preferred destination isn’t on sale. I know I’ll be participating.
Ed,
I went to the website this morning for a quick look (I’m away for the weekend). Your post tells me more than a quick glimpse of IF offers. I’ll take a good long look when I get home.
Thanks for the tip.
dhammer53, you’re welcome. Hope it works out. Might be a good time to consider next year’s planning. 🙂
Ed,
I have plenty of miles. Tell Randy that I could use hotel points in the next promotion. He can even run a promo with Chase so I can boost my Ultimate Rewards account and move points to Hyatt.
Dhammer, pretty sure we have a hotel promo coming up. Not sure if it will be points or status yet.
Any tips for logging in to the Inside Flyer website. I try using my milepoint login, and it never says I logged in or didn’t. Then when I try to click on the register promo, it tells me to log in. When I tried to use the “Contact Us” feature, it says it’s not available.
Nick, I had the same issues this morning. Try clicking through to an individual thread via the forums link at the top. Once in a thread, find the login link at the bottom and use you Milepoint credentials. Let me know how you make out.
That did it. Thanks so much Ed!
Nick, sorry for the confusion.
Is my math off or is this 2.5:1 promo only very marginally better than the 135% bonus promo that just ended yesterday (i.e. 2.35:1)? It’s a decent buy rate if one has a specific trip in the planning stage and would be otherwise paying cash for the ticket(s), but there is still no way I would speculatively buy Lifemiles at this price.
John, when combined with the discounts I thought it was a pretty good offer. But, understand if you don’t agree. I bought points speculatively exactly once. It worked out okay (Starpoints) but it’s not for me.
I can log into insideflyer, and I have a lifemiles account, but I don’t know where to register for this promotion.
Lifemiles was offering a 135% bonus on purchased miles last month, and 145% by registering through a Brazil portal of some kind. So 2.5 to 1 is a 150% bonus on purchased miles, right? It doesn’t sound that spectacular to me, what is the cost per mile, just under 1.4 cents?
I’m also confused by the rules — it says you can register by October 6 and buy miles by October 12th, but it also says you will have 24 hours after registering to confirm purchase of miles. If I register now, do I have until the 12th to purchase or only 24 hours? Also, I typed in my LM number to register, and instead of saying “You’re registered” I got an ambiguous response saying something like “You’ve used all available promotions, check back for more soon.” I have no idea if I’m registered or not.
Jph, not sure about the error. But, as long as you register by Monday, you can purchase until the 12th. Sorry for the confusion. Once we get to Monday, it’ll take a day for LifeMiles to register on their end before you can purchase. Does that make sense?
Is there a reason you neglected to mention that the minimum purchase to activate this promotion is $3,894.00?
HeavenlyJane, due to tax differences it’s actually $3300-ish. But, at the time I received the details of the offer there was no indication there was a minimum. I need to go back and edit my post, as that’s a key point.