For those looking to redeem points on Star Alliance airlines, lifemiles continues to return value, and the current American Express 15% transfer bonus helps even more.
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ANA Raises Rates
From April 18th, 2024 ANA is raising its rates in some cases as high as 33% for business class and first class awards. While the carrier still has an excellent award chart there are a few problems that keep bringing me back to lifemiles.
The first is that I can’t book award tickets for anyone besides myself or two levels of family members. I’d like to be able to fly with my business partner but unless he marries my sister-in-law, I’m flying another carrier.
Second, and this is the biggest, I can’t book one-way journeys. There are plenty of times I need to book one-ways and find that in every other program, this is where I start the redemption journey working backward once I find space available.
Lastly, because taxes, fees, and fuel surcharges are passed through, it renders some of the easiest airlines from North America useless or at least cost prohibitive.
Lifemiles Redemptions Continue To Show Value
“Buy Miles” campaigns come around with some frequency where the loyalty program outright sells miles usually with a significant bonus. Travelers can buy lifemiles with a bonus of 165% at the moment, but as someone with a healthy balance of AMEX Membership Rewards points, transferring with a 15% bonus is still a great value. For one, I don’t have to spend new money, and two, redemption rates remain lower than most Star Alliance currencies.
Business class to Europe has gotten expensive for cash tickets post-pandemic and program devaluations make it expensive even on points. I found availability for 63,000 lifemiles but because of the transfer bonus, it’s even less when transferring points. For a European trip I was looking at this week, travelers get a 15% bonus when you transfer from AMEX to lifemiles. Rather than moving 63,000 over, I’d just transfer 55,000 American Express Membership Rewards points to Avianca lifemiles cover the one-way for each passenger. For the avoidance of doubt, that’s rounding up because AMEX transfer partners must move in 1,000 point increments so I’d actually recieve 63,250 into my account.
American Airlines has an excellent rate (57,500) if you can find flights with AA flight numbers as opposed to British Airways where fuel surcharges negate all value. If you’re looking for Star Alliance, Aeroplan wants 80,000 for the same route, United wants 80,000-88,000 with the latter more common. I found SAS for 77,000 points but there are rarely transfer opportunities with the Scandinavian carrier.
It’s uncommon for a carrier to have a reasonable award chart, a widely transferable currency, low fuel surcharges, and frequent bonuses. When I look at Air France which also has low rates, is transferable from several programs, and has frequent bonuses, fuel surcharges make many awards a poor value. British Airways has all of the same features as Air France and even worse fuel surcharges often due to the APD in London.
That said, changing a lifemiles award once booked can cost $200 to cancel and some things must be handled over the phone. Not every Star Alliance flight is available for redemptions even if it is on another program. I typically find the award availability before I transfer miles into the lifemiles program.
Conclusion
I consistently find value in lifemiles transfer bonuses due to their reasonable award chart, low surcharges, and the ability to reduce costs even further by redeeming a bonus from other currencies I use. While I would love more availability, I have found space in Swiss business class, Singapore Airlines, along with more convenient programs like United. I have always been able to redeem lifemiles online fairly quickly and easily.
What do you think?
I don’t think the 15% bonus promo is running anymore. I didn’t see it when I tried to transfer points on March 1.
On my Amex Platinum Business card site right now. There is no 15% bonus for lifemiles.
The bonus miles are being awarded by Lifemiles, not Amex… thats why you don’t see it on the Amex site.