Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
| Sorry, this deal is no longer available. Do you want to be alerted about new deals as they’re published? Click here to subscribe to Frequent Miler's Instant Posts by email. |
We wrote earlier today about the 145% bonus you can get at the moment when buying LifeMiles. That bonus comes at the perfect time if you wanted to take advantage of the new LifeMiles award sale which is offering award flights for up to 43% off their normal prices.
The Deal
- Save up to 43% on select Star Alliance flights worldwide with the latest LifeMiles award sale.
- Direct link to offer (click ‘Review Here’ on that page to view the full award chart, or view it here)
Key Terms
- Redemption dates: between November 26th to Dec 9th, 2019.
- Seats are limited, and may not be available on all flights and/or dates. Subject to availability of Class X, Class O and Class I. Only valid for flights on STAR ALLIANCE airlines.
- The mileage showed on the table is for one way trips.
Quick Thoughts
The largest discount you can receive with this sale is 43% which is for economy flights between Miami and Panama City. Business class flights between those two cities are also discounted by 40% which means they only cost 18,000 LifeMiles each way.
There are some routes where first class is discounted, although the largest discount is 20%. That’s for flights between Los Angeles and Seoul or Tokyo, so your net cost will be 72,000 LifeMiles in each instance which isn’t too bad.
A couple of other options that stood out to me are Lima to Houston for 16,000 miles and Lima to Miami for 14,000 miles each way in economy. If you’re planning a trip across the Atlantic, Newark to London can be had for 18,000 miles in economy. If you’d rather travel in business class, you can fly from JFK to Vienna, Geneva or Budapest for 50,500 miles.
There’s a range of domestic routes on sale too. Award prices go as low as 4,500 miles on several routes including Los Angeles or San Francisco to Las Vegas and Newark to Boston or Pittsburgh, while there are many 5,000 mile options.
These award sale prices can be made even cheaper if you have a stash of Citi ThankYou points thanks to the current 25% transfer bonus. For example, you’d only need to transfer 29,000 ThankYou points for a round trip flight from Miami to Panama City in business class, or 15,000 ThankYou points for a one-way flight to London from Newark. Alternatively, you can also buy LifeMiles with a 145% bonus right now.
Note that you don’t have to fly with Avianca in order to take advantage of the award sale, so some routes you can fly United Polaris, while business class flights to or from Taipei on EVA Air are definitely worth experiencing.
I was having problems with the LifeMiles website earlier when writing about the 145% bonus and have continued having problems with loading this award sale promotion. It might be the result of increased traffic due to these new promotions, so if you’re having similar difficulties then try again in an hour or two and it’ll hopefully be working better. I wouldn’t wait too long if you’re wanting to actually book award flights though as availability will get worse the longer you wait.
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
I have a unique dilemma. I want to take advantage of the transfer bonus from Citi, but the award calendar for the dates in December 2020 that I want to fly on is not open yet. I could take advantage of the transfer, but their is always the chance that the availability may not be there when the award calendar opens for my preferred dates of travel. Should I do the transfer and take the risk?
It’s hard to say – I guess it’s all about your risk tolerance. If you transferred the points and then there wasn’t the availability, would that prevent you from going on the trip or would you have other options? If you have other options, it might be worth taking the risk.
Not sure if this helps, but I suggest only transferring a few at a time. When I did a transfer last week, I suddenly ended up with 150% more, instead of the published 25% more.