Avianca Airlines LifeMiles Explained【LifeMiles+ subscription rewards】

【2025.12.04 Update】Limited-time LifeMiles+ subscription reward: subscribe between December 4 and December 15 to receive welcome miles.

LifeMiles is the mileage programme of Colombia’s Avianca (AV). It may sound a little obscure because of the airline’s home country, but it actually has many advantages and is a programme this blog strongly recommends watching.

• No high fuel surcharges
• No extra fee for close-in award bookings
• Zone-based award charts rather than Aeroplan-style dynamic pricing
• Many Star Alliance redemptions: Air Canada, United, ANA, Lufthansa, EVA Air, Air China and Shenzhen Airlines
• Frequent mileage sales at low costs, making miles easy to obtain

The airline

Avianca Airlines, usually called Avianca or AV, is Colombia’s national airline. Its headquarters are in Bogotá. Its IATA code is AV and its ICAO code is AVA. Its main hub is El Dorado International Airport in Bogotá.

Avianca is a Star Alliance member and Colombia’s largest airline. Across Latin America, it is the second-largest airline after LATAM Chile.

Avianca primarily connects North and South America. Its Canadian destination is Toronto. US destinations include San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Dallas, Houston, Washington, New York, Boston, Orlando and Miami.

1.1 Elite status

In 2024, the thresholds for Red, Silver and Gold elite status stayed the same. The Diamond threshold increased from 40,000 to 45,000 qualifying miles, and the Avianca-spend requirement increased from 20,000 to 22,500.

Qualifying miles required for elite status in 2023

LifeMiles now works like the AA programme: regardless of how miles are earned, they can help you reach elite status more quickly:

• Flying Avianca or a Star Alliance airline: each mile counts as one qualifying mile
• Spending on a LifeMiles co-brand credit card (mostly irrelevant to North American readers): every two miles count as one qualifying mile
• Buying LifeMiles: every two miles count as one qualifying mile
• Shopping with a partner merchant: every two miles count as one qualifying mile

✏️ In practice, people who buy a lot of LifeMiles can certainly reach the qualifying-mile requirement. What they lack is flight activity on Avianca. When travelling to South America, consider flying Avianca to earn its elite status more easily.

1.2 Status benefits

The mileage programme

Avianca’s mileage programme is called LifeMiles. Miles in an account expire after 12 months; earning miles can extend the validity, but redeeming miles cannot. A family account can have up to seven members.

Retroactively credit flight miles through the official website.

Partners: Star Alliance + Aeromexico + Iberia

2.1 Earning miles

2.1.1 Flying

• Avianca-operated flights

• Other flights can also earn LifeMiles, including Star Alliance flights, Iberia, GOL and Aeromexico.

【2025.01.10 Update】LifeMiles increased its benefits in 2025: the mileage-earning ability on Avianca-operated flights has improved.

2.1.2 Co-brand credit-card spending

🇺🇸 Cardless issues two LifeMiles co-brand credit cards.

🇺🇸 Cardless Avianca LifeMiles Amex Elite

🇺🇸 Cardless Avianca LifeMiles Amex

2.1.3 Other niche methods

• Car rentals
• Accommodation
• Hotel bookings
• LifeMiles Experiences
• Shopping cashback portal
• Dining

2.1.4 ❗️Other points transfers❗️

For every partner around the world, see the detailed official website. The list below includes only options relevant to our readers. Also follow the blog’s real-time airline promotion updates, as there are often promotions for transferring different programmes into LifeMiles.

• 🇨🇦 No Canadian credit-card points can be transferred to LifeMiles except Marriott points (further reading: a summary of Canadian credit-card points transfers to airline miles).

• 🇺🇸 US credit-card points can be transferred to LifeMiles (further reading: a summary of US credit-card transfers to airline and hotel programmes).

• 🇨🇳 China

⚠️ Although SPD Bank is listed on the LifeMiles website, available information suggests that this route may no longer work. The website is not updated promptly.

• Hotel points to LifeMiles

2.1.5 ❗️Buying-mile promotions❗️

Avianca LifeMiles promotions are very generous. There are discounts or bonuses throughout most of the year, although the level varies. You can refer to the blog’s article tracking all airline promotions (click here); LifeMiles frequently offers bonuses of 140%–165%. It is relatively easy to obtain miles at around 1.3–1.4 cpp USD.

I wrote a dedicated article analysing whether buying LifeMiles is worthwhile using real redemption examples:

Is buying LifeMiles worth it? An analysis using award sweet spots

Summary of LifeMiles buying promotions in 2023

Date	Cost, cpp USD
12.16	1.2
12.13	1.3
11.21	1.27
11.7	1.29
10.17	1.41
9.12	1.4
8.24	1.32
7.11, 8.16	1.375
6.24	1.32
5.16	1.35

2.1.6 LifeMiles+ paid subscription: doubled miles

A LifeMiles+ subscription provides the following benefits:

The benefit level depends on the subscription tier:

【2024.12.25 Update】I tried it in practice and found that the LifeMiles+ subscription is genuinely useful. If you need to redeem LifeMiles, you should understand it first.

• Receive: 10% off LifeMiles award tickets and monthly mileage deposits of 500 (Lite) to 10,000 (Max).
• Pay: a monthly fee (you must subscribe for at least six months before cancelling).

Using a cost of 1.2 cpp USD and my Lite subscription, let us analyse whether this service is worthwhile:

• The monthly cost is US$20, less the US$6 value of the 500 miles received. You must subscribe for six months, so the total outlay is US$84.
• Break-even point: 84 * 100 / 1.2 = 7,000 points.

In other words, if you redeem 70,000 LifeMiles award tickets within six months, the 7,000 miles saved roughly cover the cost of the LifeMiles+ subscription. From that point, the subscription produces a positive return.

➡️ Hands-on example

• Subscribe and receive 500 miles

• Redeem Istanbul–San Francisco, Turkish Airlines business class (IST–SFO)

A regular member sees a price of 69,000 miles. After subscribing to LifeMiles+, the award price is 62,100 miles; two tickets save 13,800 miles in total.

2.2 Using miles

2.2.1 ❗️Redeeming award tickets❗️

LifeMiles’ website has continued to improve, and searching for award seats is now much easier. Official award-search link.

Changes cost US$150; ticketing through a phone agent costs US$25; cancelling an award ticket usually costs about US$50–US$200.

Award-ticket change rules have followed the general trend: you may change only the date, not the airline, route, segments or passenger.

Redemption rules:

• One-way awards are allowed; the mileage requirement is half the round-trip price.
• Stopovers cannot be added.
• Cash-and-miles combinations may be allowed (to be confirmed).

LifeMiles prices awards by zones. The world is divided into five zones: North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe and the Middle East, Africa, and the Pacific. Dynamic pricing has now been introduced within the US, but Canadian domestic awards, long-haul awards and close-in awards can still be attractive. The current award chart is not publicly available; try searching the route you want to see the price.

There are also occasional redemption promotions in which members receive a portion of the miles back.

2.2.1.1 Example: Vancouver–Tokyo

Vancouver–Tokyo: economy 47K, business 90K.

2.2.1.2 Example: Vancouver–Shanghai

Vancouver–Shanghai: economy 47K, business 90K (no specific availability was found; based on Tokyo, the price should be the same).

2.2.1.3 Example: Toronto–Tokyo

Toronto–Tokyo: economy 47K, business 90K.

2.2.1.4 Example: Toronto–Shanghai

Toronto–Shanghai: economy 46.5K; business class (no availability found; based on Tokyo, it should also be 90K).

2.2.1.5 Example: within Canada (exceptionally valuable close to departure)

🌰 For example, a close-in Toronto–Montreal flight:

🌰 Another example is Calgary–Vancouver. Redeeming an Air Canada ticket with LifeMiles is very good value because the programme is zone-based rather than dynamically priced according to the cash fare.

🌰 Calgary–Toronto

2.2.1.6 Example: Montreal–Shanghai

Business class: 75K.

2.2.1.7 Other sweet spots

• Short-haul flights within the US, just like Canadian domestic flights: United economy for only 6.5K + US$5.60
• The US West Coast to Hawaii: United economy 15K
• Europe–US economy 20K, business 60K, first 87K
• Short-haul flights within Europe
• Short-haul flights within Northeast Asia
• North America or Asia to Australia and New Zealand

2.2.2 Redeeming airport-lounge access

• Avianca lounge list

Within Colombia

International

• Redemption ratio

Other updates

【2024.06.21 Update】Thanks to community member rchu for sharing: LifeMiles seems to be preparing a major change, adding substantial YQ. Hopefully this is a bug rather than a redesign in progress.

Further reading

• An analysis of whether buying LifeMiles is worthwhile using specific award examples

Is buying LifeMiles worth it? An analysis using award sweet spots

• Blog updates on LifeMiles purchase promotions

Airline promotions ✈️ 2024【Air France $75 off, LifeMiles 160%, 20% UR-to-Aeroplan bonus】