Lifemiles February 125% Promotion on Purchased Miles

Ben -

Lifemiles recently ran a promotion in early February with a 100% bonus on transferred miles which I didn't cover as it is generally more complicated to use. But today they launched their first purchase miles promotion for 2018 offering miles purchases with up to a 125% bonus.

Lifemiles is one of my favourite programs, whilst it has some quirks that frustrate many people, I have managed to successfully book several cheap Star Alliance premium cabin fares using the program. For example, I recently returned from Japan where I managed to get return flights from Sydney to Japan for $1,600 by using lifemiles, you can read the trip report here.

This promotion is timed well for me as I have a few flights coming up, so if I can find Star Alliance availability I will quite possible purchase miles again.

Current Promotion

The current promotion is 2 for 1 miles plus an additional bonus that is tiered depending on how many miles you purchase.

With this promotion miles will set you back ~1.47c usd per mile, assuming you purchase miles in the top tier above 101,000 to receive the maximum bonus. This is not the best deal they have ever done as we have seen up to a 140% bonus in the past.

Using Lifemiles

Avianca the airline that runs the Lifemiles program is a member of the Star Alliance which means you can redeem your Lifemiles for some great airline products.

As I have written about before my pick of redemptions with Lifemiles for Australian based travelers are the following routes:

  • Australia to Bangkok in First Class costs 75,000 (*60,000 the opposite directions)
  • Australia to Bangkok in Business Class costs 50,000 (*40,000 the opposite direction)
  • Australia to Japan in First Class costs 62,500 (*50,000 the opposite direction)
  • Australia to Japan in Business Class costs 50,000 (*40,000 the opposite direction)
  • Australia to Europe in First Class costs 120,000
  • Australia to Europe in Business Class costs 92,500
*Lifemiles recently had a devaluation for flights departing Australia, so the miles required varies depending on the direction of travel, you can read more about it here.

With the current promotion at 1.4c a mile, a return trip from Australia to Japan in the fantastic Thai Airways First Class will cost you ~$1,653usd (~$2,110aud).

Should You Purchase?

So the bottom line is this promotion is up there with some of the better ones Lifemiles have run. If you have a holiday coming up and can find availability (note you can search with no miles in your account), then this may be a good promotion to take advantage of, but at this price, I would not speculatively buy miles.

Some things to note:

  • You are capped at purchasing 200,000 miles per calendar year. This is outside of any applicable bonus miles you may have received
  • If you are new to buying miles for cheap premium travel you can read my primer here
  • As always I would recommend only buying miles if you can use them straight away
  • Lifemiles tend to run promotions on a fairly regular basis so it is likely that we will see another bonus like this in November
  • There are some tricks to booking Lifemiles redemptions, I will be writing a guide series post on them very soon so like my facebook page to stay informed about updates!