(EXPIRED) 25% transfer bonus to LifeMiles from Citi ThankYou

Avianca LifeMiles is offering a 25% transfer bonus when you transfer Citi ThankYou points to Avianca LifeMiles. If you have Citi ThankYou points, this can make some of Avianca’s already sugary sweet spots downright indulgent.

The Deal

• Avianca LifeMiles is offering a 25% transfer bonus from Citi ThankYou points. This bonus is on the LifeMiles side.
• Direct link to more info

Key Terms

• This Promotion is valid only for point transfers from Citibank Thank You Points to miles of the LifeMiles program from April 1st, 2022 (12:00 AM GMT-5) to April 30th, 2022 (11:59 PM GMT-4).
• Miles and bonus miles will show up as separate transactions
• Miles and bonus miles will post within 24 hours

Quick Thoughts

We see periodic transfer boinuses from various programs to Avianca LifeMiles and Avianca sells miles cheaply several times a year, so there isn’t an urgency to transfer if you don’t have a redemption in mind in the near-term.

That said, if you do have a good redemption in mind, this can make it all the better. Avianca LifeMiles charges 63K miles each way in business class to Europe. With this transfer bonus, you’d only need to move 50K ThankYou points to Avianca LifeMiles to book business class from the US to Europe on Star Alliance without any fuel surcharges.

But that’s not the full story. Since Avianca offers such a hackable award chart, adding a long economy class flight at either end of the trip could drop the price significantly and require even fewer ThankYou points. See this post for more detail.

Avianca also has some “secret” award chart sweet spots. Certain awards don’t price according to the chart. For instance, New York (JFK) to Zurich (ZRH) prices at 16.5K miles in economy class, which would be just over 13K ThankYou points one-way. An even better one in my opinion is business class from New York (JFK) to Lisbon, Portugal, which prices at 35K miles in business class (whether on TAP Air Portugal or other partners). This transfer bonus would mean you’d only need 28K ThankYou points to fly one-way flat-bed business class to Europe. That’s a tremendous deal. See this post for more.

That said, I wouldn’t recommend transferring without a plan in mind as it isn’t worth locking your points in a single program. With Avianca that is especially salient since LifeMiles expire after a year of inactivity (as I recently found out the hard way).

Note that this bonus is on the LifeMiles side, so you won’t see it reflected in your ThankYou account but rather Avianca will add the bonus after the transfer.

Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.