Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Avianca Lifemiles - Newbie Round-Up

Avianca Lifemiles - Newbie Round-Up

Round-up of Aviance LifeMiles experiences as a raw newbie

1. Signed up, got a number immediately. Online password was E mailed after 30 mins. Mrs harryhv also signed up. Drawback - Impossible to enter our address as the city is a drop-list missing our town in Australia. Had to put in a nearby town instead.

2. Bought a handful of miles for USD30 per 1,000. No tax. No limit on buy-miles. The bought-miles posted immediately. Transferred them to Mrs harryhv with bonus offer. Transferred-miles and bonus posted immediately. Continued to transfer back and forth till fingers sore. Drawback - Credit-card company called up, what all these charges in Colombia?

3. Looked for awards. Bl00dy superb search engine, heaps better than ANA or even KVS. Shows a week long list, including multi-sector awards with many legs. Selected a transpac award, AC biz for late June 2013, some 350 days ahead. So not yet visible to ANA, KVS, UAMP etc. Not sure that even AC's own members can see that far out.

Also apparently no limit at the short end, shows awards for tomorrow.

Drawback - Must select destinations from their list, and couldn't hack the page to include CMB for example, would have to call for that.

4. Price YYZ-SYD one-way C, 27000 miles + $513 cash + $83 tax. No YQ, YR, or other fees. Total cost including buying all the miles, about USD1,000. Terms & conditions showed up as a balloon with 4 words: Change $150, Cancel $50. Ticketed within 15 minutes. Drawback - ticketed on Avianca stock (202), must hope they are still around in 12 months; need to call Avianca's notorious call centre in case of schedule changes etc.

5. Stopovers - a one-way fare is just that, no stopover. But there's a multi-city award page which assumes you are booking a return fare with one stopover which seems to be allowed. The mulit-city page is also missing a few important destinations from the drop-list. However there are rumours that it can be persuaded to offer some bargains for remote stops. [Edit-The multi-city seems to charge as if you booked the sectors separately so not sure of its purpose.]

6. Earning - haven't had much time to look at the table but seems normal, similar to Diamond Club with 150% for UA F etc.

7. Status - wasnt interested as you need to fly a few flights with them.

Avianca Lifemiles, altogether a great experience online. Now will see if it's as bad as they say when you call them.