Lifemiles 145% Promo on Purchased Miles

Ben -

Lifemiles just launched a new promotion for the next few weeks offering miles purchases with up to a 145% bonus up until the 2nd of October.

The current promotion is 2 for 1 miles plus an additional bonus that is tiered depending on how many miles you purchase. What is great about this particular promotion is that the maximum bonus tier of 145% kicks in at just 41,000 miles purchased! This is often much higher.

With this promotion miles will set you back ~1.34c usd per mile, assuming you purchase miles in the top tier above 41,000 to receive the maximum bonus. This is up there with some of the best deals we have seen in the past, so if you have an immediate need for Lifemiles it could work out well.

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.

Another great example of using Lifemiles was getting Singapore airlines business class flights cheaper than economy, unfortunately I never got to take that flight. But be warned Lifemiles is not without it's quirks!

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

With the current promotion at 1.34c a mile, a return trip from Australia to Japan in the fantastic Thai Airways First Class will cost you ~$1,507usd (~$2,1980aud).

Important Note Regards Thai Airways

As I have mentioned several times before, one of the best uses for Lifemiles in Australia is premium cabin awards on Thai Airways. Unfortunately it seems over the last few months Thai Airways are not releasing any availability in advance on routes in and out of Sydney. I suspect they are blocking partner awards due to the devaluation they announced earlier this year on their own Royal Orchid Plus frequent flyer program as this seems to be affecting all partner airlines.

Flights still seem to be available within a two week window from departure but this wont suit many people. Hopefully after October, once the devaluation goes live, things will return to normal.

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!