15% transfer bonus to Avianca Lifemiles from Amex Membership Rewards

American Express Membership Rewards is offering a 15% transfer bonus when you transfer points to Avianca LifeMiles. While Lifemiles has some notable drawbacks, this can nonetheless make for some solid deals on Star Alliance awards without carrier-imposed surcharges.

The Deal

• Amex Membership Rewards is offering a 15% transfer bonus when transferring points to Avianca Lifemiles through 11/30/25

Key Terms

• You must be enrolled in the Avianca Lifemiles program in order to participate in this offer, visit https://www.avianca.com/en/lifemiles/lifemiles-program/  to enroll.
• Once you have transferred Membership Rewards points, they become subject to the Terms and Conditions of the Avianca Lifemiles program and cannot be transferred back to your Membership Rewards program account.
• Minimum transfer is 1,000 Membership Rewards points.
• Redeem for this exclusive offer from 12:00 a.m. MT on 11/3/2025 to 11:59 p.m. MT on 11/30/2025, to receive 15% additional Avianca Lifemiles.
• Additional 15% will be awarded at the time of transfer.
• Generally, transfers are immediate, but please allow up to 72 hours for the transfer to be completed.

Quick Thoughts

Avianca LifeMiles is primarily known for the ability to book Star Alliance awards without surcharges. While they have changed award pricing a few times in recent years, Avianca can frequently be an easy way to score a solid deal on a transatlantic business class award ticket. Theoretically, there are also opportunities to score good deals on United domestic economy class awards, though United has become so stingy in terms of releasing award space to partners that this really just relies on United’s generosity (or lack thereof). For years, I used more Avianca Lifemiles than any other type of mile.

However, LifeMiles also has its clear drawbacks.

For starters, the website doesn’t always show availability that ought to be bookable by all Star Alliance partners. Sometimes, that’s just a function of playing with search parameters (for instance, selecting an airline to search rather than using “Smart Search”). However, other times, they just can’t seem to book flights that you would expect to see available. This problem isn’t on the same level as Turkish’s problems seeing partner space, but it can nonetheless be frustrating.

Another major issue with LifeMiles is that the website sometimes displays inaccurate taxes and fees in initial search results. In some cases, particularly with mixed partner awards, the full taxes and fees aren’t shown until the final checkout page. The problem is that you need to have at least 40% of the miles to book an award before you can get to that page. I always recommend checking the taxes via Air Canada Aeroplan as LifeMiles will more or less match Aeroplan’s pricing (both programs have a small ~$25USD partner booking fee and otherwise only charge taxes).

Award change and cancellation fees are also a pain point. Avianca has high change and cancellation fees, which vary based on your booking (the fees are shown during the booking process). That said, those fees can be obviated by signing up for a LifeMiles+ “Basic” or higher subscription, which includes free cancellation up to 72 hours in advance as well as a 10% discount on award pricing, including partner award tickets (note that the “Lite” subscription, which is the cheapest plan, does not include free cancellation). Learn more about Lifemiles+ in this post.

Finally, miles expire after just 12 months of inactivity, which is the shortest expiration policy of the major airline programs. You can keep your Lifemiles alive by transferring miles from a partner (or by subscribing to Lifemiles+), but I’ve forgotten and had miles expire, which certainly stinks.

However, despite the drawbacks, I’m still a fan of Avianca Lifemiles. A 15% transfer bonus wouldn’t be enough to make me consider making a speculative transfer, but it would certainly be enough to have me checking for opportunities to leverage the bonus and save on a trip that I already had in mind.

Best uses of Avianca Lifemiles

Things to know about Avianca Lifemiles

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