Cardless Avianca Cards – Increased 120,000 Mile Bonus

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• Unrelated to this specific card/offer..... has anyone recently received an email from Cardless indicating that their account is frozen? It is odd and concerning as my account was closed over 18 months ago. Their email seems to imply fraud - "noticed unusual behavior".

• Are there any other ways to get avianca silver or other status? My star alliance gold benefits don’t take affect when purchasing avianca tickets until you purchase the mid fare, sometimes double the cheap fare.

• I called and asked if I could do a product change from TAP to Avianca and was told that was not possible and only 1 Cardless card is allowed per lifetime, as others have said.

  I asked to cancel the account and got a retention offer for 10000 TAP miles which I accepted.

• Cardless is garbage, I applied for the avianca card when it first launched and they did a hard check and denied me because I was traveling “a far distance from my home location”. Yes, I travel year-round which is why I applied for the card. There was no appeal process, only that i should reapply in 45 days. 50 days later I applied again. Denied again, this time for suspected fraud. No appeal process available, garbage customer service couldn’t provide any additional information after many calls trying to appeal or fix it. I asked to escalate to a manager and they couldn’t. They’re terrible.

  • Fool me once...

• Scarce redemption availability options for many international routes on United metal is a big issue now with Lifemiles. Prefer to wait for better availability at this point.

• "Cardless only lets you hold one Cardless card at a time so keep that in mind"
  No.
  Cardless only lets you hold one Cardless card EVER. They have told me this is an IT deficiency and is being addressed. However, despite repeated requests they refuse to give a date.

  They appear to be a really incompetent company.

• Don't waste your time folks.

  Approval for this card is a joke. Presented with:

  • Excessive obligations in relation to income

  Alongside a 840 credit score they pulled from Experian

  This card is not even listed on Amex site so that says something. :-)

  • It’s not an Amex card. Amex just processes the transactions

• The biggest impediment is Cardless' one-card rule. Might a person's "perfect" card be somewhere in the future? One never knows. So, unless a person knows a given card is *the* card for one's circumstances, a person wouldn't want to use their one and only slot.

  • The perfect argument against marriage.....

    • This makes no sense. You can get a divorce and marry someone else.

      • It might be a pretty expensive strategy, just make sure she doesn’t get half of your bank bonuses (and half of your watches)!😂

• Wow! This is even better than the wait-list offer of 70,000! I guess they don't have as many customers as they would like if they are going up to 80,000.

  For those interested:

  I like the card. Not willing to say "I love it" only because the AMEX offers are crap - you don't get the official offers like the traditional AMEX cards like BCE, BCP, etc. You get the global offers which are mostly junk. Avianca silver status is truly very nice.

  If you get the elite card giving you the LifeMiles+ lite subscription, the 2x miles bonus comes 5 days after statement close.

  People aren't in love with the refund process for miles redemptions should you upgrade to the LifeMiles+ basic subscription. You'll eventually get your money back but it's not as seamless as United and other US carriers.

  • what has your experience been with AV Silver status, @guest_1957467 ?

    • @guest_1957475 Love it 10x. Never had airline status before. And, considering that airline credit cards don't usually give status, to get status WITH a credit card is amazing. Now, I fly enough with Avianca that I prefer to have the LifeMiles+ subscription to get 10% miles discount, so paying the $249 for the Elite card is fine - you get 6,000 free miles with the subscription and that is valued at AT LEAST $120 since I value LifeMiles at $0.02/mile at a MINIMUM (I regularly get $0.025/mile). The basic plan only has 1000 miles that can be doubled each month. So I recommend that anyone doing this SUB on the Elite card try their best to spread out the $4000 over 3 months so they max out their 2x miles bonus. Getting 6x on Avianca flights is really nice. Getting 4x on dining and travel is very nice - wells fargo is only 3x (my Savor is 4x, but it is nice that I'm not losing anything on the Avianca card vs Savor card when I have dining deals like there exists now - a current 10% off dining small business AMEX offer).

      Star Alliance Silver has very little benefit on partner airlines, but on Avianca? They give you so much.

      The biggest benefit is getting your phone calls answered immediately. No joke. Pre-status? Calls would take anywhere from 5-60 mins to get answered. Now? Regardless of the day of the week and time of day it is immediately answered. The first thing the automated system asks for is your LifeMiles number. If I insert the number incorrectly, I make sure to hang up and do it again because I want my call answered quicker.

      Now, I can't ascertain as to whether the FIRST bag on flights is free, but the second bag being free is very very useful. As far as Avianca pricing is concerned, that is a savings of like $70 or more.

      I was checking my miles earnings from recent flights, comparing what I earned vs my daughter, who isn't silver. I didn't realize that as Silver you earn 30% more miles. So that is helpful.

      Having priority check-in, baggage handling and boarding is really really really nice. Being able to select exit or plus seats for free is REALLY nice now that all the Avianca A320Neo planes basic are so...basic.

      I don't like that the system will automatically apply a business class seat upgrade credit. I was flying back in July and I got an email notification that one of my two credits was used. And I was like, wtf? What's going on, I dont need business on this flight. So I called and the guy said it just works like that and you have to call and cancel the request, so I did.

      Avianca lounge is really clutch in Bogota. El Dorado lounge is nice, but really not. Too many people, food and showers aren't free, and it feels very basement-like. Avianca lounge has free food, free showers and has a nice open atrium feel. Now, you only get 5 visits per year and only 2 guests. So, you need to plan accordingly.

      There is another status feature called family pooling. It allows you to put max 2 adults (yourself included) and 5 children in a family pool and you can transfer miles for free between the accounts. The annoying part is removing people. If you want to remove someone you have to submit the request to deactivate. Then they are immediately deactivated but you can't do anything until the status renewal - so I removed my wife figuring it would be quick changes. Nope. The change is pending until July when my card fee renews. When operating normally, it is nice - get those points out of an account that has an approaching expiration date, or put them in an account that has a LifeMiles+ subscription to get 11% added value (10% miles discount = 11% added value).

• Is it one Cardless product at a time or 1 per lifetime?

  • Alas, unless this has changed recently, the max is still one per lifetime:

    "At this time, if you are a current Cardless customer, it is not possible to change to a different product or close your account and open a new one."

    https://cardless-support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/19097404946711-Can-I-apply-for-multiple-Cardless-products

    • Maybe it's not a totally stupid policy. I opened one for a measly $300 SUB back when Cardless was new and there were very few good offers around. Small biz approvals were virtually shut down by the pandemic. The AApocalypse had derailed the trAAin. I was down to the dregs.

      Because of the one-per-lifetime policy there's no reason to close it. That card still inhabits my sock drawer and I still charge a dollar on it every year.

      $300 was a bargain price to acquire a new cardholder. For Cardless it must be one of the oldest accounts in their portfolio and a very low risk one. It's got to look good to the stockholders. The $300 is water under the bridge.

      Plus, they've eliminated a deadbeat churner from their pool of applicants! If it was churnable they'd have to keep paying us to reopen them. And the market price for a 5/24 slot is much higher now.

      • I would understand a no-double SUB policy across their CC portfolio, but downright denying a second card to everyone -- including proven 'low-risk' profiles like me and you... -- frankly seems counterproductive. I'm sure that many who got their first card during Cardless' fixation with sports teams would double down now that they are into airlines (plus a shopping mall).

        My card (Man. Utd.) is from Sept. 2022, so it's a couple years that it's one of my top choices for Michelin-star restaurants overseas (3% cash back and no FTF with Mastercard's conversion rate).

        I never spoke to anybody there, but I can't imagine this policy is just due to an IT glitch that they are unable to fix. I'd be quite interested to hear their own reasons, if they decide to keep it in place.

    • That's got to be in the top 5 dumbest policies out there.

      • I wouldn't be surprised if they'll decide to chance this policy, it's a lose-lose situation for them as well. Ironically, given the constant rotation that's going on in their portfolio, most current customers (myself included) probably have accounts from discontinued cards!

  • At a time AFAIK